 Chapter 7 The Clothes of the Day They rode straight home. On the way Dick went lame and both dismounted to examine him. This will make you miss your train, she suggested hypocritically. He had Dick's foot up. His comment on the remark was very like the rest of his comments. Not this, he said, and without looking up. Do you mean to say you've missed it anyway? Asked Kate. What does the sun say? She bit her lip. Too bad, she exclaimed, looking across the distance, that still lay between them and the junction. I don't see anything wrong with his foot, he announced, completing his inspection. I think he wrenched it himself. He said no more till they started again, and then resumed in his odd way just where they had left off talking. I've been trying to figure out why you wanted me to miss the train. She looked at him in surprise. I think you did want me to, he continued, but I can't figure out why. She protested but not with too many words. She felt sure he was not easily to be deceived. In any case, however, he was unflinchingly amiable. After they got back to the junction, the totally unexpected happened. They dismounted and she went into the lunchroom. Her victim pursued an examination of Dick's leg. An early supper was being served in the dining room to the freight train crew. Two of the double-day cowboys from the ranch came into the lunchroom from the front door. Kate at the desk was making ready to manage her own escape from the scene. The smaller cowboy, walking in last, looked back curiously at her riding companion as he stood with Dick's hoof on his knee. The man slouched up to the counter. Wouldn't that kill you? muttered the smaller man to his partner. What do you mean? demanded the other. The first speaker hitched his thumb guardedly over his shoulder. Know who that is out there? No, I don't. Who is he? Kate's ears were wide open. None other continued the man pulling a face than the well-known Jim Laramie himself. His partner checked him and the two, talking in low tones, walked into the dining room. Kate could not at first believe her ears. Then she felt that the cowboy must know what he was talking about. Worst of all, Laramie, at that moment, before she could think of collecting herself, walked in through the open door. He came directly to the counter. She hardly attempted to hide her consternation. Are you Jim Laramie? she burst out in her excitement. It must have been the manner of her words rather than the words themselves that startled him. For just an instant the curtain lifted, a flash of anger shot from his eyes. It was drawn again at once. Is my reputation over here as bad as that? he asked. Kate was dumb. Try as she would, she could not think of a thing to say. The recollection of her reckless ride overwhelmed her. What's happened? He continued with a little irritation. If you aren't afraid of me when you didn't know my name, why be afraid now? She stammered something, some apology which she received she afterward thought coolly. I'm running up to the house now to change. She went on hurriedly. But I must thank you for what on earth was she to thank him for? He helped her out. Before you go, he interrupted sitting up on the counter stool, nearest her, and looking at her without paying the slightest attention to her meaningless words. Before you go, tell me your name. Oddly enough, by just speaking, he restored order to her faculties. She looked straight at him. You guessed that this morning, she said frankly. Kate, she nodded. That's queer, he mused. It must have been pure accident. I heard that the man I came to round up today had a girl named Kate. So I suppose that was the first name came into my head. Kate, what else? Suppose, she suggested gravely, we keep the rest for the next time. For our next ride, she looked just away from his persistent eyes. Perhaps. Well, your name, he went on, surprised me as much as my name surprised you. Who knows, she retorted. And speaking, she started for the front door. Stop! He stepped in front of her just enough to bar her way. There was a tange of command in his voice and manner quite new. Halted but not pleased, she waited for him to go on. You'll come back, won't you? I'll try to. I want to listen, he added coolly, to the worst story you ever heard about Jim Laramie. I don't pay much attention to cowboy stories. He certainly paid no attention to her words. Will you come back? he persisted. I will if I can, she said confusedly. He was just enough in front of her to detain her. Say you will. It was somewhat between command and entreaty. Old Henry at the side of the platform was just mounting the done horse. Kate was getting panicky. Very well, she answered, I'll come back. The moment she got to the cottage she locked the front door and drew all the shades, and every mouth full of the cold supper she ate with her father lodged in her throat. To him she dared not say a word. Once in the evening the doorbell rang and some man asked for Barb Doubleday. He made a few inquiries when Henry answered that Doubleday was not in town, but he did not ask for Kate. She felt curious tremors listening to the low voice, but Laramie, for it was he, presently turned from the door, and she heard his footsteps crunching down the gravel path to the street. In the morning Henry told her a man had lingered around the lunchroom until the lights were put out at ten o'clock. By that time he must have known every pine knot in the varnished ceiling when peaceably put out of the room by the night man, he had walked out on the platform to the posts where the horses had stood and looked long across the tracks toward Doubleday's cottage on the hill. No lights were burning in the cottage. He turned to walk toward it, but as he stepped into the street the whistle of the eastbound overland train sounded in the hills to the west. Evidently this changed his mind, for he retraced his steps and entered the waiting room, walked to the ticket window, and bought a ticket for Sleepy Cat. He waited until the train pulled in and lauded on the platform till it was ready to pull out, speaking to no one. When the conductor finally gave the starting signal the man looked for the last time around toward the lunchroom door. Everything was dark. He caught the handrail of the last open sleeper and swung up on the step. There he stood, looking down the platform and across the street while the train drew slowly out. Then turning to go into the car he uttered only one word to himself, and that a mild one. Jipped! But even then, had Kate heard it, she would have been frightened. End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8 of Laramie holds the range by Frank Spearman. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. Chapter 8. The Home of Laramie Almost due north of Sleepy Cat, the Lodge Pole Mountains, tumbling over one another in an upheaval southward, are flung suddenly to the west and spread in a declining ridge to the superstition range. South of the Lodge Poles the country is very rough, but at the point where the range is so sharply deflected, there spreads fan-like to the east an open basin with good soil and water. It is known locally as the Falling Wall Country, and, as the names of the region indicate, it was once famous as a hunting ground, and so as a fighting ground, for the powerful tribes of early days. And an ample reservation in this basin, ending just where the good lands began, is the stamping ground of the last of the mountain Redmen. But the struggle for possession of the Falling Wall Country did not end with the Redmen. White men, too, have coveted the lands of the Falling Wall and fought for them. Among the blind, one-eyed are kings, and the Falling Wall Basin lies amid inhospitable deserts, barren hills, and landscapes slashed to rags and ribbons by mountain storms, regions that have failed to tempt even a white man's cupidity. The Indians fought for the basin with arrows, bullets, tomahawks, and scalping knives. The whites have fought chiefly in the land offices and courts, but, exasperated by delays and inflamed by defeat, they have at times boiled over and appealed to the rifle in the hip holster for decrees to quiet title. It is for these reasons and others that the Falling Wall Country has born a hard and somewhat sinister name, even in a region where men have been habitually indifferent to restraint and tolerant of violent appeals to frontier justice. In the very early days of the white man the Indian clung to the Falling Wall Country as his last stand, for the bad lands along the canyons of the Falling Wall River made, as they yet make, an almost impenetrable fastness for sally and retreat. But even before the Indians were driven into this barren cage to the north, white adventurers had penetrated the basin and it became, with the shifting of possession, a region for men of hard repute. Its traditions have been bad, and few in the Falling Wall Country have felt concern over the fact. Yet from the earliest days, despite the many difficulties of living in the widely known but not large park, a few hardy settlers managed from the beginning, in secluded portions of the region, to keep their scalps and their horses and to live through Indian days and outlaw days, though not often in peace and never in quiet. Among these early adventurers was one known as Texas Laramie, because he had the extraordinary courage or hardyhood to bring into the Falling Wall the first cattle ever driven into the mountains from the Panhandle. In a country where the soba kit is usually the only name by which it is courteous or safe to address a man, and where it is invariably apt, few men are accorded two. But Laramie was also known as Plump Laramie, because he brought into that country the first Winchester rifle, and the instinctive significance the mind attaches to the combination of cows and a repeating rifle was, in this instance, justified. There was, between the two, a direct, even dynamic connection. Laramie thus figured prominently in the older Falling Wall feuds. It would have been difficult for him to figure obscurely and do it more than once. Enemies said that he stole the bunch of cattle he first drove into the Falling Wall. It was not true, but it made a good story. And in any event, Texas Laramie defended his steers vigorously against all men, advancing claim to them between darkness and daylight, as enterprising neighbors not infrequently undertook to do. With the cattle Laramie had brought into the mountains a wife from Texas. She was a young mother with a little boy, Jim, a good mother, never happy in the country so far away from the staked lane, and not very long to live there. But she lived long enough to send Jim year after year to the sister's school on the reservation, to obtain for a boy any sort of education in a region so wild and so inhospitable would have seemed impossible. Yet devoted sisters, refined and aristocratic American women, were already in this mountain country devoting their lives to the Indian missions. Under such women little Jim learned his catechism and his reading, and from them, and their example, a few of the amenities of life, so far removed from him in every other direction. Under their care he grew up, after he lost his mother, among the Indian boys. With these he learned to fish and hunt, to trap for pocket money, to use a bow and arrow and a knife, to trail and stalk patiently, to lie uncomplaining and cold and wet, to ride without saddle or bridle or spur, to face a grisly without excitement, to use a rifle where the price of every cartridge was reckoned, and a poor aim sometime cost life itself. And every summer at home his father added extension courses in the saddle, in bridle, spur, hackamore, and lariat to his education. He taught him to rope, throw, and mark, to use a coffee pot and frying pan, and at last on the great day, the commencement day, so to say of the boy's frontier education, he presented him with his degree, a colch revolver and a box of cartridges, and died. As he lay on his deathbed, Texas Laramie left a parting advice to his young son. You've learned to shoot, Jim. You don't shoot bad for a youngster. A man's got to shoot, but the less shooting you do after you've learned, without your force to it, mind you, the more comfortable you'll feel when you get where I am now. All I can say is, I never killed an honest man that I knowed of. In fact, his breath came very slowly. I never yet seen an honest man in the falling wall to kill. And Jim began life with the ranch, youth, a little bunch of cattle, no money, and much health in the falling wall. His first year alone he never forgot, for in the spring he drove all his steers, not a great many, into the new railroad town south, sleepy cat, and sold them for more money than he had ever seen at one time in his life. He wandered from the bank into Harry Tennyson's gambling rooms, Harry having sold out his livery stable to Joe Kitchen shortly before that, just to look on for a little while before starting home. When Laramie did start home, Tennyson had all his steer money, and Laramie owed the sober-faced gambler, besides $100. Laramie then went to work on the range for $25,000. He worked four months, and it was hard work. Took his paycheck in, and handed it to Tennyson. That was, strangely enough, the beginning of a friendship that was never broken. Tennyson tried to give the cheque back to Laramie. He could not, but Laramie never again tried to clean out the bank at Tennyson's. The Laramie cabin on Turkey Creek, the sun built afterward on the same spot, stood on a slight conical rise some distance back from the little stream that watered the ranch. From his windows, Jim Laramie could look on gently falling ground in all directions. Toward the creek lay an alfalfa field, which, with a crude irrigating ditch and water from the creek, he had brought to a prosperous stand. Below the alfalfa stood the barn and the corral. The day after K. Doubleday's adventure with him at the junction, Laramie was riding up the creek to his cabin, when a man standing at the corral gate hailed him. It wagged Ben's simmer all. Ben, old and ragged, met every man with a smile, a bearded, seemed and shabby smile, but an honest smile. Ben was a derelict of the range, a stray whose appeal could be only to patient men. Whenever he wandered into the falling wall country where he had a claim, he made Laramie's cabin a sort of headquarters and spent weeks at a time there, looking after the stock in return for what John Lafever termed the herdsies of the ranch. Laramie, greeting Ben, made casual inquiry about the stock. Ben looked at him as if expectant, but Ben was not aggressive for news or anything else. He grinned as he looked Laramie over. Well, you're back again, Jim. Laramie responded in kindly fashion. Anybody been here? Narrow critter! declared the custodian. Sept Abe Hulk, he came over to borrow your Marlin rifle. What did he want with that? Said he was going up into the mountains, but he's coming over again before he starts. I know he helped you track them wire scouts over the barbs. The blame critters tore off all wire to the other side of the creek, too. Get any track of them? He asked, sympathetically alive to what had been most on Laramie's mind when he had started from home. Laramie barely hesitated, but he looked squarely at Ben and answered in even tones. No track, Ben. Ben looked at him, still smiling with a kindly hope. Here from the contest on the creek quarter, they told me in medicine, Ben had had gone against me. Shoo! Never! You've got another go to Washington, ain't he? Laramie nodded and got down from his horse. Ben, removing the saddle, asked more questions, none of them important. And after putting up the horse, the two men started for the house. Its rude walls were well laid up in good logs on which rested a timbered roof shingled. A living room with a fireplace roughly fashioned in stone made up the larger interior of the cabin. To the right of the fireplace a kitchen opened off the living room and adjoining this, to the right, as one entered the front door, was a bedroom. To the left stood a small table on which were scattered a few old books, a metal lamp and well-thumbed copies of old magazines. Beside the table stood a heavy oak Morris chair of the kind sold by mail-order houses. Two other chairs, heavily built in oak, were disposed about the room, and on the left of the entrance, there was but one door, stood a cot bed. On the floor between the door and the fireplace lay a huge silver-tipped bare skin, the head set up by an Indian taxidermist. It was some time afterward when Kate saw the cabin that she remembered, even after it lay in ruins, just how the interior had looked. The four walls were really more furnished than the rest of the room. To the right and left of the fireplace hung twin big horn heads, and elk and stag antlers on the other walls supplied racks for an ample variety of rifles, polished by familiar use and kept through love of trusty friends in good order. Trophies of the hunt, disposed sometimes in effective and sometimes in mere man-fashioned, flanked the racks and showed the taste of the owner of the isolated habitation, for a few trails led within miles of Laramie's Ranch on the turkey. Breakfast, Simmerall looked at his companion, who stood vacantly, musing at the door of the kitchen. Coffee, answered Laramie, taking off his jacket, laying his colt on the table, and slipping off his breast-hardest. I got no bread, announced Ben, to forestall objection. Flowers low, and I didn't bake. Crackers will do, ain't no crackers neither, returned Ben. Raising his voice and his smile in self-defense. Gimme coffee and bacon, suggested Laramie, impatiently. And I'll fry some potatoes, muttered Ben, shuffling with a show of speed into the kitchen, and calling inquiries back in his unsteady voice to the living room, patiently digging at Laramie for scraps of news from Sleepy Cat, volunteering in return scraps from the range and ranch. Laramie sat down in the nearest chair, tilted it slightly back, and resting one arm on the table gazed into the empty fireplace. He appeared as if much preoccupied, nor would, nor could, he talk of what was on his mind, nor think of anything else. Some minutes later he began in the same absent-minded manner on a huge plateful of bacon, with a pot of coffee and keeping, and was eating in silence when the stillness of the sunshine was broken by the sound of a horse's hoofs. Laramie looked out and saw, through the open door, a horseman riding in leisurely fashion up from the creek. The man was tall, he swung lightly out of his saddle near the door, and as he walked into the house it could be seen that he was proportioned in his frame to his height. Strength and agility revealed themselves in every move. A rifle slung in a scabbard hung beside the shoulder of the horse, and the man's rig proclaimed the cowboy, though aside from a broad-brimmed stetson hat his garb was simplicity itself. It was the way in which he carried his height and shoulders that arrested attention, nor was his face one easily to be forgotten. He wore a jet-black beard that grew close and dropped compactly down. He was neither bushy nor scraggly, and with his black brows it made a striking setting for strong and rather deep-set eyes, which if not actually black, were certainly very dark. His smile revealed white regular teeth under his dark mustache, and his olive complexion, though tanned, seemed different from those of men that rode the range with him. Perhaps it was owing to the glossy black beard. Abe Hawke was evidently at home in Laramie's cabin. He stepped through the door and pushing his hat back on his forehead, took a chair, and sat down. The two men, masters of taciturnity, looked at each other while this was taking place, and as Hawke seated himself, Laramie called for a cup, and pushed the coffee pot toward his visitor. Paying no attention to the unspoken invitation, Hawke's features assumed the quizzical lines they sometimes wore when he relaxed and poked questions at his friend. Well, he demanded, batteringly, Where's Jimmy been? Medicine? Sleepy cat? Pretty near everywhere. I hear you got a job. I was offered one. Deputy Marshal, eh? Farrell Kennedy got me down to Medicine Bend to talk it over. What's the matter? Couldn't you hold it? I didn't want it. You're out of practice with this law and order stuff. You've lived up here too long among thieves, Jim. Find out who tore down your wire? Laramie replied in even tones, but his voice was hard. I trailed them across the crazy woman. It was somebody from Doubleday's ranch. They had a story at Stormy Gorman's. You had gone over there to blow Barb's head off. Barb wasn't home. Hawke was conscious of the evasion. While Stormy's talked true, he demanded curtly. I expected to ask Barb whether he wanted to put my wire back. I was going to give him a chance. It would have been hard to guess how that would come out. Where was he? Asked Hawke with evident disappointment. They said he was in Sleepy Cat. I rode in and missed him there. He'd gone to the mines. I took the train up to the junction. There I accidentally got switched off my job and came home. How'd you get switched off? asked Hawke, resenting the outcome. Laramie's manner showed he disliked being bored into. He leaned forward with a touch of asperity and looked straight at his visitor. By not tending strictly to my own business, Abe, Hawke knew from the expression of Laramie's eyes he must drop the subject. And though he lost none of his bantering manner, he desisted. They didn't have a warrant for me down at the Marshal's office, did they? They were short of blanks, retorted Laramie coolly. How are you fixed for flower? Plenty of it. Laramie spoke loudly for fear simmer all my protest. Then he called promptly to the kitchen. Ben, get up some flower for Abe. Ben quavered a protest. Get it up now before you forget it, insisted Laramie. Is Tom Stone still foreman over a double day's? I guess he is. Returned Laramie. What does double day aim to do with Stone? Asked Hawke cynically. Steal his own cattle from himself? The cattleman nowadays might as well steal his own cattle as to wait for somebody else to steal it. Laramie spoke with some annoyance. There's going to be trouble for these falling wall rustlers. Meaning me? Asked Hawke contemptuously. I never mean you without saying you, Abe. You ought to know that by this time. But this running off steers is getting too raw. From the undertalking sleepy cat, there's going to be something done. Who by? By the cattleman. I thought, Hawke spoke again, contemptuously. You meant by the sheriff. But I didn't, said Laramie. I meant by the bunch at the range. And when they start, they'll stir things up over this way. Hawke hazarded a guess on another subject. It looked like Van Horn putting in Stone over a double day's. It is Van Horn. Hawke looked in silence out of the open door at the distant snow-capped mountains. Why don't you kill him, Jim? He asked, after a moment, possibly in earnest, possibly in jest, for his iron tone sometimes meant everything, sometimes nothing. Laramie at all events took the words lightly. He answered Hawke's question with another. But his retort and manner were as easy as Hawke's question, and expression was hard. Why don't you? The bearded man across the table did not hesitate, nor did he cast about for words. On the contrary, he replied with an embarrassing promptness. I will, sometime. A man that didn't know you, Abe, might think you meant it, commented Laramie, filling his coffee cup. Hawke's white teeth showed just for the instant that he smiled. Then he talked of other things. The end of Chapter 8 Chapter 9 of Laramie Holds the Range by Frank Spearman This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. Chapter 9 At the Bar The arrival of a baby at the home of Harry Tennyson in Sleepy Cat had an immediate effect on Kate Double Day's fortune in the mountains, and indeed on the fortunes of a number of other people in Sleepy Cat. Wholly out of proportion to its importance as a family event. It was not, it is true, for the Tennyson's a mere family event. Married fifteen years, they had been without children, until the advent of this baby. And the birth of a boy to Harry Tennyson excited not alone the parents, but the town, the railroad division, and the hundred miles of range and desert north and south, tributary to the town. For a number of years Tennyson had run his place in Sleepy Cat, undisturbed by the swiftly changing fortunes of frontiersmen and railroad men. Tragedies in their sudden sweep across the horizon of his activities, the poised gambler and hotel man had met unmoved. Men went to the heights of mining or range affluence and to the depths of crude passion, inevitable despair and tragic death with Harry Tennyson coldly unruffled. He was a man in so far detached from his surroundings, yet with his finger on the pulse of happenings in his unstable world. But the birth of one baby, and that a small one, upset him completely and very unexpectedly shocked others of his motley circle of acquaintance. The complications followed on the announcement, on a Monday when the baby was three days old and the mother and boy were reported by the nurse to be coming along like kittens, that the following Saturday would be open day at the mountain house. Tennyson's new and almost palatial hotel, with the proprietor standing host for the town and the countryside. Before the week was out, this word had swept through the mountains, from the stretches of the Thief River on the south to the recesses of the large poles on the north. It was the one topic of interest for the week on the range. Few were the remote corners where the news did not penetrate and the unfortunates who missed the celebration long did pinnets in listening to long-winded accounts of Sleepy Cat's memorable day. It dawned in a splendor blue sky and golden sun, with the mountain reaches snow swept and still, brought incredibly near and clear through the sparkling air of the high plateau. The Sleepy Cat Ban were Tennyson's very first guest for breakfast. And you want to eat hearty, boys? Declared Ben Simmerall, who had reached town the night before, in order that no round crossing the Tennyson Bar should escape him. Harry, expect you to blow like hell all day! Few men are more conscientious in the discharge of duty than the members of a small town brass band. The Sleepy Cat musicians held back only until the arrival of the early local freight, 2nd 77, for their base horn player, the Fireman. When the train pulled up toward the station on a yard track, the band members in uniform on the platform awaited their melodic backstop, and the Fireman, in greeting, pulled the whistle cord for a blast. The switch engine promptly responded, and one whistle after another joined in until every engine in the yard was blowing as Ben had declared Tennyson expected the band itself to blow. And this woefully impromptu and happy way the day was opened. The band, laboriously trained for years by the local jeweler, said to be able to blow a candle through an inch board with his south bend B-flat cornet, now formed in marching order, the grimmed Fireman gamely in place even after a night run with his silver contra base. At an energetic signal from their leader, they struck up a march and started down street with the offering as a pledge of what they might be expected to do. They were not called on, however, to do all, for at noon the Bear Dance Band arrived from the west, and an hour later came the crack 32-piece military band from Medicine Bend, carrying more gold on their lasings and their horns than the local musicians carried in the savings bank. By the time the noon whistle blew at the roundhouse, every trail and road into Sleepy Cat showed dust, some of them in abundance. The hotel was naturally the center of attraction, and Main Street looked like a frontier-day crowd. The reservation, too, sent a delegation for the occasion, and mingling in the jostling but good-natured crowd, were chiefs, bucks, and squalls who, in a riot of war-bonnets, porcupine waistcoats, gay trappings and formal blankets, lent yellows and reds and blues to the scene. All entrances to the mountain house were decorated and a stream of visitors poured in and out, with congratulations for Tennyson, who received them at the bar in the Big Billiard Hall, opening on Main Street. By evening the hall presented an extraordinary scene. Every element that went to make up the shifting life of the frontier could be picked from the crowd that filled the room. Most numerous and most aggressive in the spectacle, cattlemen and range riders and broad hats, leatheren jackets and mottled whiskets, booted and spurred and rolling in their choppy steps on pointed heels, moved everywhere, to and from the bar, around the pool tables and up and down the broad flights of stairs, leading to the second floor gambling rooms. At the upper end of the long bar there was less crowding than nearer the street door, and at this upper end three men, somewhat apart from others, while nominally drinking, stood in confab. First among them Harry Van Horn was noticeable. His strong face, with its hunting nose reflected his active mind, and as he spoke or listened to one or the other of his companions standing between them, his lively eyes flashed in the overhead light. On his left stood Tom Stone, informant of the double-day ranch. His head, carried habitually forward, gave him the appearance of always looking out from under his eyebrows, and the natural expression of his face, bordering on the morose, was never lighted by more than a strained smile. A smile that suggested a grin that puckered the corners of his eyes and drew hard furrows down his cheeks, but evidenced nothing akin to even the skim milk of human kindness. On Van Horn's left stood an older man of massive features, the owner of the largest ranch in the North Country, Barb Doubleday. Miners from Thief River, with frank, fearless faces, broad, throated, belted, and shifted, and with brawny arms for pick and sledge and doublejack, moved to and from the bar like desert travelers breathing in an oasis. Men from the short spillway valleys of the superstition range, the coyotes and wolves of the Spanish sinks, were easily to be identified by their shifty eyes and loud laughter and handy sick shooters. Moving in a little group rather apart from these than mingling with them, talking and drinking more among themselves, were men from the Falling Wall, men professedly ranching on the upper waters of the horse, the turkey and the crazy woman creeks, tributaries of the Falling Wall River, in point of fact rustlers between whom and the big cattlemen of the range there always existed a deadly enmity, and at times open warfare. At two-card tables placed together in the upper inner corner of the room sat a little party of these Falling Wall men smoking and drinking in leisurely, or more correctly in preliminary fashion, for the evening was still young, and inspecting the moving crowd at the bar. At the head of the table sat the ex-cowboy and ex-pugilist Stormy German, his face usually, and now, reddened with liquor, square-shouldered, square-faced and squat, a man harsh-voiced and terse of iron endurance and with the stubbornness of a mule. Next him sat Yankee Robinson, thin-faced and wearing a weather-beaten yellow beard, and Dutch Henry was there, bony, nervous, eager-eyed, with broken English stories of drought and hardship on the upper turkey. These three men, brains and resource of several less able but not less unscrupulous companions who preyed on the cattle range north of Sleepy Cat, led the talk and were the most carefully listened to by the men that surrounded them. It was later that two men entered the room from the hotel office together. The contained, defiant walk of the slightly heavier and taller of the two was characteristic, and without the black beard, deep eyes, and the power of his face would almost have identified him as Abe Hawk. While in the emotionless, sandy features of his companion and in his more frank, careless makeup, the widely known ranchman of the Falling Wall, Jim Laramie, was easily recognized. Hawk, separating from his companion, walked to the right. German hailed him, and Hawk paused before the table at which the former prize fighters sat with his friends. Each of these, in turn, had something effusive to say to Hawk. Hawk listened to everything without a change of countenance. Neither smile nor word moved him in the competition to arouse his interest. When all had had their fling of invitation and comment, he refused an oft-repeated invitation to sit down. I might injure my reputations, he said grimly and moved unconcernly on. Fanhorn's eyes had not missed the inconspicuous entrance of the two Falling Wall men. There's the man himself right now, he exclaimed, looking toward Laramie. No better time to talk to him, either, than right now, added Barb Doubleday Horsley. Take him back into the office, Harry. When you're through, come up to the room. Van Horn, leaving the bar, intercepted Laramie. Doubleday and Stone, pretending not to observe, saw Van Horn, on the plea of important talk, succeed, after some demure, in inducing Laramie to return with him to the hotel office. Once there, and in a quiet corner with two chairs, Van Horn lost no time in opening his subject. You know as well as I do, Jim, what shape things are in on the North Range. It can't go on. Everybody is losing cattle right and left to these rustlers. They've been running Doubleday's steers right down to the railroad camp on the spider water. We trace the brands on them. You know as well as I do, who took them. Laramie listened perfunctorily, his eyes moving part of the time over the room. Speak for yourself, Harry. He intervened at this junction. I know exactly nothing about who took anybody's steers, nor that any were taken. Van Horn uttered a quick exclamation. Well, you sure heard about it. In this country a man can hear anything. Observed Laramie not greatly moved. I've heard there isn't a crooked cattleman north of Sleepy Cat. Van Horn stared. Go on, continued Laramie, looking at the passersby. I'm listening. Doubleday has sold the eating house and disposed of his property at the junction. You mean his creditors took it, don't you? Put it anywhere you like. He's going in for more cattle and we're going to put this range on the map. But we've got to clean out this folding wall bunch first. The big man can't stand it any longer and won't stand it. But then, I want you to get in right on the move with us, Jim. This is your chance. You're in a tough neighborhood over there. Now I know you're not a wrestler. No, you don't. Yes, I do. A veered Van Horn. But everybody doesn't know you as well as I do. And your name suffers because you don't get along with the cattleman. Doubleday, pettigrew, and the rest. What then? What then, echoed Van Horn, feeling the uphill pull. Why line up with us against these wrestlers? We're going to have a big get-together barbecue this summer and when it's pulled, we want you there. You'll have a friend and every man on the range, however some of them feel now. They know the stuff you're made of, Jim. They know if you put your hand to your gun with them, you'll stay. And if you do it, they know it's goodbye to the wrestlers. Closely as Van Horn, while speaking, watched the effects of his words. It was impossible to gather from Laramie's face the slightest clue as to the impression they were making. Laramie said quite relaxed his back to the corner, his legs crossed, listening. He looked straight ahead without so much as blinking. Van Horn, nervous and impatient, scrutinized him. That's my hand, Jim, he said, flatly. What have you got? Laramie paused. After a moment, he turned his eyes on this questioner. No hand. This is not my game. Make it your game and your game in this country is made. Double day and Dan Pettigrew want you. They're the men that run this country. What do you say? The men that run this country can't run me. Van Horn, in spite of his assurance, felt the blow. But he put on a front. What makes you talk that way? He flared. This is the same bunch, continued Laramie evenly, that set two different men to get me two years ago. And when I defended myself, had me indicted. That indictment is still hanging for all I know. This is the bunch that owns the district court. Van Horn made a violent gesture. What's the use raking up old sores? That's past and gone. That indictment's been squashed long ago. This is the bunch, and Laramie spoke even more deliberately. He looked directly almost disconcertingly at Van Horn himself. That sent the men to rip off my wire just a while ago. I tracked them to double days, and if I'd found double day or you or stone there that day, if I'd got my eyes on Barb double day that day, you'd have turned the men that pulled that wire over to me, or I'd have known the reason why. Now these same critters and you have the gall to talk to me about joining hands. Hell, I'd quicker join hands with a bunch of rattlesnakes. When that crowd want me, let them come and get me. I'm not chatting. They talk about cattle thieves. Why, your outfit would steal the spurs off a rustler's heels. And when men like Hawk and Yankee Robinson and Germans set up a little ranch with a few head of cows for themselves, your bunch blacklist them, refuses them work anywhere on the range. Where did Dutch Henry learn to steal? Working for Barb double day. He branded Mavericks for him, played dummy for his land entry, swore to false affidavits for him. Now, when he turns around and steals the steers he stole from Barb, Barb has the nerve to ask me to round him up at my proper risk and run him out of the country. Van Horn rose. That's the answer, is it? Laramie said still. He looked dead ahead. What did it sound like? He asked as Van Horn stood looking at him. Just the same, Jim, muttered Van Horn. The rustlers have got to go. Laramie looked across the office. That all may be, he observed, rising, and he repeated as Van Horn started away. That all may be, and the men that ripped off my wire have got to put it back. Tell them I said so. Van Horn whirled in a flash of anger. You talk as if you think I'd ripped it off myself. I do think so. At one instant the two men, confronting, eyed each other, Van Horn's face aflame. Both carried Colt's revolvers and hip holsters. Van Horn's guns slung at his right hip, Laramie's slung at his left. Both were known capable of extremes. Then the critical moment passed. Van Horn broke into a laugh. Without a yellow drop in his veins as far as personal courage went, he had thought twice before attempting to draw where no man had yet drawn successfully. He put out his hand in frank fashion. Jim, you wrong yourself as much as me when you talk that way. He made his peace as well as it could be made in words, but when his protestations were ended, Laramie only said, That all may be, Harry, but whoever pulled my wire and left it in the creek will put it back, if it's ten years from now. The two men, Van Horn still talking, made their way back to the billiard hall, Laramie refusing to drink and halting for brief greetings when assailed by acquaintances. After they parted, Van Horn, as soon as he could escape notice, passed again through the door leading to the hotel office. He walked up the main stairway to the second floor, thence to the third floor, and following a corridor stopped in front of the last room, slipped a pass key into the lock, and opening the door, entered and closed it behind him. Two men sat in the room, double day, and stoned. Stoned was dust out of the barber's chair, his hair parted and faultlessly plastered on both sides across his forehead, and his face shaven and powdered. His forehead, drawn in horizontal wrinkles rather than vertical ones, looked lower and flatter because of them. To add to the truculence of his natural expression, he was now somewhat under the influence of liquor and looked perplexed. Van Horn did not wait to be questioned. He walked directly to the table between the two men and took a cigar from the open box. Can't do a thing with that fellow, he reported brusquely. Double day, by means of questions, got the story of the fruitless interview. Stoned listened. The slow movement of his eyes showed an effort, but none of the story escaped him. Van Horn, answering with some impatience, had lighted one cigar, and bunching half a dozen more in his hand, stowed them in the upper waistcoat pocket. Double day, between heavy jaws and large teeth, shifted slowly or chewed savagely at a half-burned cigar, and bored into Van Horn. Van Horn was in no mood for speculative comment. You might as well talk to a wildcat, he said. Pulling that wire has left him sore all over. Double day looked at Stoned vindictively. That was your scheme. No more than it was Van Horn's retorted Stoned. What's the use squabbling over that now? Demanded Van Horn impatiently. I'm done, Barb. You've got to go ahead without him. Double day chewed his cigar in silence. Van Horn, restless and humiliated, spoke angrily and thought fast. From time to time he looked quickly at Stoned. The foreman was in condition to do anything. Look here, Tom, exclaimed Van Horn in low tones. Suppose you go downstairs and give him a talk yourself. What do you say, Barb? You shot the words at double day like bullets. Double day understood, and his teeth clicked sharply. He said nothing, only stared at the foreman with his stony gray eyes. Stoned drew his revolver from his hip, and, breaking the gun, slipped out the cartridges and slipped the five mechanically back into place. Laramie, in the meantime, had joined a group of men at the upper end of the bar in the billiard hall. McCalpin, Joe Kitchen's barn boss, Henry Souty, the big sporty stock buyer of the town, and the profane but always dependable drugist and railroad surgeon Dr. Carpy. With one of these, Souty, Harry Tennyson from behind the bar, was talking. He interrupted himself to hold his hand over toward Laramie. Been looking for you, Scout? He said in balanced tones. Been looking for you? He repeated, releasing Laramie's hand and holding up his own. If you failed me today, Jim, I wouldn't fail you, Harry. It's well you didn't. Champagne, Luke, he added, calling to a solemn-faced bartender who wore a forehead shade. No champagne for me, Harry, protested Laramie. What are you going to have? Ask the mild-mannered bartender, perfunctorily. Laramie tilted his hat brim. Why? he answered after everybody had contributed advice. If I've got to take something on this little boy, a little whiskey, I suppose, Luke. No poison served here tonight, Jim. Growl, Souty, throwing his bloodshot eyes on Laramie. I don't want any anyway, Henry, was the unmoved retort. Luke, wrapping the cork of the champagne bottle under his long fingers, hesitated. Tennyson, looking with his heavily-lidded eyes, did not waver. You'll drink what I tell you tonight, he maintained coldly. Open it, Luke. Laramie stood sidewise while talking, one foot on the rail, his elbow resting on the bar, and with his head turned he was looking at Tennyson, who stood directly opposite him behind the bar. Laramie submitted to the dictation without further protest. A man will try anything once, was his only comment. As he uttered the words, he felt a point pressed tightly against his right side, and what was of greater import, heard the familiar click of a gun-hammer. It was too late to look around, too late to make the slightest move. All that Laramie could get out of the situation without moving, he read, motionless in Tennyson's eyes, for Tennyson was now looking straight at the assailant, at the assailant, and with a frozen expression that told Laramie of his peril. In next instant Laramie heard rough words. Turn around here, Jim. They told him all he needed to know, for in them he recognized the voice. In the instant between hearing the words and obeying, a singular change took place in the falling wall ranchman's eyes. Looking over at Tennyson, his eyes have been keen and clear. Slowly, and with a faint smile, he turned his head. When his eyes met those of Tom Stone, who confronted him, pressing the muzzle of a cocked Colt's .45 gun against his stomach, they were soft and glazed. Laramie had changed in an instant from a man that had not tasted liquor to a man half tipsy. It was a faint, but a faint made with an accurate understanding of a dangerous enemy. End of Chapter 9 Chapter 10 of Laramie Holds the Range by Frank Spearman This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. Chapter 10 Laramie Counts Five There was not a chance of escape. Laramie's left arm was resting on the bar. Under the overhang, Stone, as he faced Laramie, now pressed the gun with his right arm into Laramie's stomach. For Laramie to attempt to knock it away with his own right hand would be to take an almost certainly fatal chance, while for any friend of his to touch Stone or shoot him would mean certain death to Laramie. Feeling that he had his enemy dead to rights, Stone baited him. Laramie, he began fixing his eyes on those of his victim. There's some men's lived in this country too long. The words carried the irritable nasal tone familiar to Stone's acquaintances. Laramie's eyes merely brightened a little with the effort to reply. Tom, he declared with just enough of hesitation to play the game, that's the first thing my wife said yesterday morning. Stone stared. When, he demanded, did you get married? Put up your gun, I'll tell you about it. Stone only grinned. I can hear pretty well right now. If you want to see her picture, Tom, uncock your gun. Not a little bit. I've got you right. Laramie smiled. Sure, Tom, but there's plenty of time. Put down the hammer. Stone, without moving his gun, did silently lower the hammer. Laramie counted one. Then he began to describe his trick bride. Stone cut him off. He cocked his gun again. Show me her picture, he snarled. Tennyson took the instant to lean impressively across the bar. He pointed a long finger at Stone. Tom, he said, with measured emphasis. No man can pull a gun here tonight and get away with it. That'll be enough. Stone scrawled. Harry, this scout is through. Nobody wants him any longer in this country, he said. Take your quarrel somewhere else tonight. This is my celebration. You get me, Tom? Under the implied threat of the determined gambler, the hammer of Stone's gun came down. I can get along with any man that'll do what's right, asserted Stone, trying to keep his head clear. Laramie won't. Why, Tom, expost your lady to Laramie reproachfully. The revolver clicked. The hammer was up again. You won't do what's right, will you, Laramie? Demanded Stone, thickly. There were probably fifty men in the room, as if by instinct each of them already knew on what a slender thread one man's life hung. Hulk, the quickest and surest of Laramie's friends, stood ten paces away, up the bar, but the silence was such that he could hear every deliberate word. Glasses half emptied, had been set, noiseless lay down. Discussions had ceased, every eye was centered on two men, and every ear strained. A few spectators tiptoed out into the office. Others that tried to pass through the swinging front door screen into the street, found a crowd already peering and tently in through the open bays. Tom, resumed Laramie in measured seriousness. It's not you and me can't get on. It's men here's made trouble between you and me, Tom. You and me rode this range when we didn't have but one blanket between us, didn't we, Tom? He demanded in loud tones. Stone in drunken irresolution uncocked his gun, but held it steady. That's all right, Laramie, he growled. Did we quarrel then? Demanded Laramie boisterously. I'm asking you, Tom, did you and me quarrel then? When a man can't turn in with Harry Van Horn and Barb Doubleday, grumbled Stone, it's time for him to quit this country. His revolver clicked again, the hammer whistled. Laramie regarded him with sobering amazement. Who told you I wouldn't turn in with Barb Doubleday? He exclaimed loudly. Who told you that? Harry Van Horn told me. Tennyson tried to enter pose. You shut up, Tennyson, was the answering growl from Stone. But Tennyson stuck to it till the hammer came down. It was only for a moment, the next instant, a score of more than a second. For a moment, the next instant, a score of breathless men heard the click of the gun as it was cocked again. Why, demanded Laramie, more cool-headed than his friends, drawn-faced and tense about him, cooler far than his maudlin words implied, and still fighting for a forlorn chance, why didn't Harry Van Horn tell me to turn in with a friend? Why didn't he tell me to turn in with you, Tom Stone? With a man I rode and bunked with. Why did they make you their scapegoat, Tom? You've got me all right, I know that. But what about you? You can't get ten feet. Abe hawks right behind you, waiting for you now. They'd bump us into the same hole, Tom. You don't want to go into the same hole with me, do you? Let's talk it over. The rambling plea sounded so reasonable, it won a brief reprieve from Stone. Don't uncock your gun till I'm through, Tom, urged Laramie. I don't want to take any advantage at all of an old partner. Keep it cocked, but listen. I don't want to talk with Van Horn, Laramie went on. Not even with Barb Doubleday. Find a man as he might be. I ain't a saiyan, Tom, but I don't want to talk to him. I want to talk to you. Just you and me, Tom, talking it over together. Don't be goat for nobody, Tom. What? The drunken foreman's brow contracted in irresolute perplexity. What'd you say, urged Laramie? Vassalating Stone let down the hammer to talk it over. It went up again almost instantly. There may, in this last brief instant, have flashed across his muddled consciousness a realization of his fatal mistake. Perhaps he saw in the wicked flash of Laramie's glazed eyes a warning of blunder. Knowing that mountain men carry only five cartridges in their revolvers, leaving the hammer for safety on an empty chamber, Laramie had parlayed with Stone only long enough to suit his own purpose. His right arm shot out at Stone's jaw, as his fist reached it the gun against his stomach snapped viciously. But the hammer, already raised six times, came down on the sixth and empty chamber. It was the chance Laramie had played for. Stone sank like an ox, as he went down his head struck the foot rail. He lay stunned. Men drew long breaths, Macalpin stooping in a flash, wrenched Stone's revolver from his hand and with a grin laded on the bar. Laramie, watching Stone coldly, did not move. His left foot still rested on the rail, his left arm on the bar. But without taking his eyes off the prostrate man, he in some way saw the white-faced bartender peering over in amazement at the fallen foreman. It seems to take you a good while, Luke, protested Laramie mildly, to open that bottle. End of chapter 10 Chapter 11 of Laramie Holds the Range by Frank Spearman This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. Chapter 11 A Duel with Kate When the eating-house at the junction was closed, Harry Tennyson sent for Bell and offered her the position of housekeeper at the mountain house. This Bell declined. She had long had in her head the idea of taking a place and serving meals on her own hook, as she expressed it. Her instincts for independence, always strong, had not only prevented her getting married, but made her restive under orders. She was stubborn. Her enemies called her abusive names, and her best friends admitted that she was sometimes difficult. At Sleepy Cat she took a cottage in Lower Main Street. She had some furniture and, having a little money saved and a little borrowed from Macalpin, Bell bought a few new pieces, including a folding bed secured at a bargain, and opened her doors for business. And whatever her faults of temperament Bell could cook. Kitchen's barn was headquarters for the small ranchers from the north and for the falling wall men, and Macalpin soon had a trade seeking Bell's place. The cottage itself faced the side street, but a little shop annex opened on Main. In this and in the cottage dining room Bell served her meals. Very soon, however, she made trouble for Macalpin. It developed that she would not serve anybody she did not like, and as her fancy was capricious, she gave most of Macalpin's following the cold shoulder. He spent much time in the beginning hot footing it, as Bell termed it, between the barn and the cottage trying to straighten things out. In the end he gave over and told Bell she could starve if she wanted to, whereupon she said tartly that she did not want to, and Macalpin snatching off his baseball cap as he did when greatly moved and twirling it in his hand asked for his money, which he failed to get. Yet one man among the hearty friends of the barn boss did find favor at the cottage, and he was the last whom Macalpin would have picked for a likely favorite. This was Jim Laramie. Laramie soon became a regular customer of Bell's, and his friends naturally followed him. The closing out of her father's interest at the junction was without regret for Kate, since it sent her up where she wanted to be, at the ranch. For some time after establishing herself there, she rarely came into Sleepy Cat. Then as the novelty wore off and small wants made themselves felt, she rode off in her to town. Mail and shopping and marketing soon established for her a regular round, and when she did ride to Sleepy Cat, she nearly always saw Bell. Sometime she lunched with her. Bell was a stickler in her home for neatness, even though the cyclone might have been supposed to harden her to dust. More than this Bell knew what was going on. She had the news. Little, in the daily round of the town and its wide territory, got by the modest scrim curtains of Bell's place. She became Kate's reporter. Men would say this was the principal attraction for Kate, and that the cooking came second. Not so. The real reason Bell got the gossip of the country was because her customers were men. Kate was probably the only woman, certainly almost the only one, among her patrons. Bell explained this by saying that none of the rest of the ranch women would spend their money for lunch. The truth really was that Bell did not like women, anyway. Kate, she tolerated because she did like her. It was the day after Tennyson's big celebration that Kate rode into town for the mail, and after some shopping walked down to Bell's for lunch. Bell was at the butcher shop across the street, telephoning. She came in after a moment. It seems to me you spend a good deal of time with that butcher, said Kate significantly. Oh, no, he's got a clubfoot. Has Harry Van Horn been shining up to you? Kate was taken aback. But she had been to blame for giving Bell an opening, and could only enter a confused denial. The first serious symptom, said Bell, garrulously, will be he'll have a headache. He'll ask for coal-closs on his forehead. When that works pretty well, he'll tell you your hair is like his sister's, and some of his hair will be like his sister's. Some evening he'll ask you to take it down. He asked me one night to take mine down. I handed him my wig. Say he was the most surprised man in Sleepy Cat. I've been trying for an hour to get that rascally milk man on the telephone. There's not a drop of cream in the house. Well, how are you? Was Tom Stone home when you left? One question followed another. Kate had not only not seen the ranch foreman, she had not heard of the excitement of the night before. From Bell she got the details of Stone's attempt to kill Laramie. The story lost nothing in Bell's hands. She had heard all versions, and was pretty good at storytelling herself. After Macauplin picked up Stone's gun, Laramie told him to turn it over to Luke, and he told Luke not to give it back to Stone till this morning. I guess they hid Stone last night. She wound up with an abusive fling at Doubleday's foreman. What do you keep such a beastly critter around for? She asked, looking at Kate hard for an answer. He humiliated at the recital. Kate thought it time to say something herself. Why do you ask me a question like that? Bell arched her eyebrows belligerently. Why shouldn't I? She demanded, and bridling with further criticism of Stone and by implication of those that employed him, she let fly again. Kate tried to ignore her outburst. You know perfectly well, she said firmly. I have nothing to say about the ranch or how it is run, or who runs it, and I don't care to listen to any comments on that subject. If you don't like my comments, you needn't come here to listen to them, retorted Bell, flaming. The two were standing at the cook's stove. While I'm here, returned Kate with tart dignity. Please don't abuse me. I say what I please to anybody if it's right, exclaimed Bell rudely. You'll be ashamed of yourself when you cool off, Kate returned, pointing to the broiler. You don't expect me to eat all that meat, do you? Bell answered with an offended dignity of her own. I expect Gem Laramie to eat the biggest part of it, and there he comes now. The front door opened, in fact, while she was speaking. Kate stood with her back to it, and though by turning, she could have peeped through the curtained archway. She would not have looked for a million dollars. If Bell wanted her revenge, she had it at that moment. Kate could not sink through the floor to escape, but how she wanted to. She did step quickly aside, hoping she had not been seen, and retired to the farthest corner of the kitchen. Bell's mouth before the stove set grimly, and with her left hand, she gave her wig the vicious punch she used when wrought up. Kate motioned to her frantically. Bell regarded her coldly, but did come closer, and Kate caught at her sleeve. For heaven's sake, she begged in a whisper, don't let him know I'm here. Kate eyed her anxiously. Bell's face was hard, and quick, firm steps were coming from the front door. Hello, Bell, was the greeting. Had they been Kate's death message, the words could not have frightened her more. She knew too well the voice. You didn't get my message, were the next words flung through the archway. I got it, answered Bell, going forward and providentially, stopping Laramie before he reached the curtains. Sit down right there, she added, pointing to a table at the rear of the lunchroom. I hurried all I could, but that rascally milkman hasn't been here yet, and there's no cream for your coffee. Your dinner's most ready, though. She started back to the kitchen. Not enough for two, is there? asked Laramie. Who's coming? demanded Bell, stomping in her tracks. Bell, you're suspicious as a cattleman. Nobody's coming, but I'm hungry. While he continued his banter, she served him and attempted to serve Kate behind the curtains. By persistent, almost despairing, pantomime, Kate dissuaded her from this. But at that moment the front door opened again, a brisk greeting was called out, and a heavy tread crossed the uneven floor of the outer room. John Lafever, Laramie got up to welcome the big deputy marshal. Just in time. Take off your manners and sit down. A bubbling laugh greeted the sally. Jim, I just can't do it. Oh yes, you'll eat with me. Where are you from? Bear dance, and medicine bin on the next train. Heard you're in town and dropped off for just one hour. Say, this is more like life's fitful fever to set eyes on you. Heard you were threatened last night with appendicitis. How about it? And John bubbled over again. In the next breath he greeted Bell as gaily. Laramie asked for another plate, and Lafever promptly resumed. You look kind of down in the mouth, Jim. What's the matter with you? Nothing's the matter with me. Lafever shrugged his shoulders. You're a kind of low-spirited Indian anyway. What are you doing up in the falling wall? Nothing? Always nothing, repeated Lafever. Better come up, suggested Laramie. What are you doing? Lafever's eyes expanded with cheer, but his voice choked with emotion. Doing? Rusting. That doesn't sound much like life's fitful fever. John glared at his companion. Lice fitful fever. Why, this is only a passing flash. How about it when you can't raise even a normal temperature? Fever? I haven't felt so much as a gentle perspiration for months. The rust is eating into my fingertips, he declared with violence. I'm a fat man. A fat man must have action, his voice fell. Else he gets fatter. I've got to do something. Once or twice I've come pretty near having to go to work. Laramie's expression may have been skeptical. At all events, John pointed a corroborating figure at him. You don't believe it. Just the same, he added, bootily. It's straight. What's dismaying doing, John? The tone of the answer bordered on the morose. Running a nursery at Medicine Bend. Trees? Trees, John snortingly invoked the hottest place he could think of. Trees? Babies, Jim, he exclaimed. I'm no family man, are you? You like Medicine Bend, don't you? Too many people there, John settled gloomily back. Then with wide open eyes he started suddenly forward. Give me a gun, Jim, he said wildly. A gun and a horse. And a north wind, exclaimed Laramie. And a high country, cried Lafever with flashing eyes. A country where you can't see a damn thing in any direction for 150 miles. Though talking vigorously, he was eating without protest from Laramie. Everything in sight. Kate could not help listening. Lafever's high spirits were contagious. Jim came next between mouthfuls. What was that story about you being up at the Junction the day I wanted you to serve those papers on old Barb Doubleday? I went up there that day because I had business of a different kind with Barb. About the wire ripping, yes. But I heard you got sewed up by a skirt and didn't talk wire to Barb at all. No more of that, John. What was there to it? I guess there was. A ride or something? What? Something, John. Thunder had must have been the ride. I had a deputy marshalship all lined up for you, if that hadn't happened. And believe me, boy, a deputy marshalship isn't lying around loose every day. Kate listened keenly for Laramie's comment. The ride was worth the price, John, was all he said. Some skirt, huh? Laramie squirmed and with an expletive protested. Hang it, John. No matter, no matter, I'll get it all from Bell someday. And after you get through with your wire thieves, we'll tell the story of your brief romance over my grave. Ride, Jim, over your grave. John Laramie ran on. Do you remember that song Tommy Megason used to sing on the roundup? A pretty little thing. It had one good line in it. Death comes but once, and then sometimes too late. Bell appeared with a vegetable. It won't keep you waiting for an awful while if things go on the way they're going now, she put in grimly. That was a good song, used Laramie, a good old song. But he heard a slight sound in the kitchen, and his eyes were turned toward the archway. Just the same that song won't keep you from getting killed, persisted Bell. Even that would be to pin the sight as clean to death Bell, maintained Laramie, still listening. You've got lots of time, he added, as Lafever looked at his watch. I haven't, exclaimed his companion. I've got to send a message. Come over to the train. I've got to write a couple of letters. Come over to the station and write your letters. Laramie shook his head. I couldn't even get to the station by one o'clock. Every man in Main Street wants to talk about Tom Stone. You'd think I had a million friends among the cattlemen this morning. I heard old Barb Doubleday is grinning like a hangman today. If Bell's got some ink, I'll write my letters right here. Kate's spirits, which had risen at the hope of being so luckily rid of one who might prove troublesome, fell at his refusal to leave. John urged, but Laramie only asked Bell again for the ink. Lafever tried to coax Bell to go to the train with him. Bell would do almost any fool thing, as John bluntly averred, but this time she must have had pity on Kate and would not leave her unprotected. Lafever went his way. From a shelf near where Kate, with clasped hands, set in silence, Bell took paper and ink into Laramie, and began to clear the table. At this unlucky moment, the front door was opened swiftly, and the boy from the butcher shop stuck his head inside. Miss Shockley, he called. The milkman's on the phone now, if you want him. Closing the door he ran back across the street. With a sense of her wrongs keen upon her, Bell, forgetting her charge in the kitchen, hurried after him. Even then Kate hoped that by keeping deathly still she might escape an unpleasant meeting. She never breathed more carefully in her life, yet she was doomed. She heard Laramie's chair pushed back and heard his footsteps. She could not be sure which way he was walking, but she thought only of flight. As stealthily and rapidly as possible she started for the back door. Without looking around she felt as if he had come to the archway and was looking at her. With courage and resolve she grasped the knob to open the door. It was locked. She fumbled with the key. Behind her, silence. She locked and unlocked the door more than once, and with a fast-drying hope for the wretched door would not open. Flushed with annoyance she turned around only to see Laramie standing precisely where she had imagined him. They faced each other. Kate could not have found a word to say had her life depended on it. Laramie held in his left hand an ink bottle, in his right a pen. He too seemed surprised, but he recovered himself. He was certainly unlucky with doors, he said. If you'll tell me where Belle keeps her ink, I'll tell you how to open that, he added calmly. Kate stiffened and shrugged her shoulders the least bit. I haven't any idea where Belle keeps the ink. She replied, clearing her throat of its huskiness. He pointed to beyond where she stood. I think the ink supply is on that shelf. She gave me an empty bottle. Should you mind handing me one with ink in it? Kate turned to the shelf. There seemed to be two kinds here, she said, as coldly as possible. Any bottle with a hole in the top will do, he suggested. This one he held the bottle up in his hand and looked at it. Seems to have a hole top and bottom. Give me the blue ink, will you? I'm sure I don't know which is which. Perhaps you'd better help yourself. Kate said, ice-ly. Thank you, but I'll show you how to open the door first. Don't trouble yourself. No trouble at all. He walked to the door explaining as he took hold of the knob. The door wasn't locked, but the catch held the latch. I can tell that from the way you handled it. You locked it yourself. Kate could not hide her resentment. It wouldn't open when I first took hold of it, she declared hastily. I tried it before I touched the key. That's what I'm explaining. When you did take hold of the key, you locked the door with the deadbolt, and then you couldn't open it, so you unlocked it and tried it again. After that, you worked so fast, I lost track. He pointed to the back of the rim lock. The catch was on, and pushing down the catch, she turned the knob and opened the door. Kate was thoroughly incensed. You are doubtless better acquainted here than I am. To tell the truth, I have to be acquainted with the rooms I go into. If I ever tried to get through a door and failed, it might not be pleasant for me. And there's a broad fence six feet high all around this yard, so unless you're a good climber, you couldn't have got out anyway. Kate felt she looked very silly, standing, staring at him, and perhaps looking frightened as she really was, for he went on as if he were explaining to a child. I'm not permitted to tell you, but I'm going to. Don't bother, please. Yes, I'd rather. There's a way to get out without climbing the fence. A loose board I'll show you sometime, but you must handle it yourself fast to make your getaway. I never expect, she said contemptuously, to have to make a getaway. Then I was wrong, he returned, frankly, for I kind of thought she were trying to make one a minute ago. His composure irritated Kate. You are very much mistaken, she declared with spirit in her words, for she was, indeed knew, how persistent he was. I was only trying to leave for home quietly and quickly. His eyes were a study in silent laughter. That's all I've ever claimed to be doing any time in my life. But I just as well leave by the front door, which perhaps, retorted Kate, you haven't always been able to do. Before you go, he was standing directly in the archway, so she had to listen. Tell me about things at the junction. I hear the lunchroom was closed up a while ago. It was, but Kate thought the time for explanation had come. I was not working at the eating house when you came in there. I'm Kate Doubleday, and I wanted to save my father that day, and I'm not a bit sorry for it. I suppose then I ought to speak out too. I was sure you were Kate Doubleday, soon after I got into the lunchroom that day, and I'm not a bit sorry for it. And I knew pretty soon you were trying to save your father. And I helped you. Oh, Kate suppressed an incredulous exclamation. Believe it or not, as you like, I helped you. And I'm not a bit sorry for it. Though he's no friend of mine, you have been from that day on. And if you ever give me a chance, I'll prove it. The worst thing you did was to go back on your word. My word was not freely given. Kate was speaking furiously. It shouldn't have been given at all then. But it's all right. Will you be friends with me? No man that speaks of my father, as you spoke of him a moment ago, can be my friend. It was Lafever spoke of your father, I couldn't shut him off. Of course he didn't know you were here. I did know, after I'd been here a while, I heard you whisper. That's why I asked for the ink. I had no letters to write. There's a lot of hard feeling in this country right now. Every man in it has his friends and enemies. You mustn't take it seriously when you hear hard words. I don't, and I hear plenty. Hadn't you and I better be friends to begin with anyway? No, she exclaimed angrily. Please let me pass. He stepped promptly aside. I never dreamed of doing anything less. Kate started rapidly for the front door. Whom should she run into just as she opened it, but Belle, coming down from her wretched telephoning and with a bottle of cream, Kate inwardly blamed her for all her trouble, and she was on edge besides. Where are you going? demanded Belle. Home! answered Kate shortly. Home? You haven't had your lunch. I don't want any. Belle caught Kate's arm. Now you just hold on. What's the matter? Is it Laramie? Belle must have read her face, for she answered nothing, only tried to get away. But child, she exclaimed, where's your coat? Wait till I bring it, and your gloves. Kate paused at the door. In a minute Belle came running back. He's gone, absolutely. There isn't a soul anywhere about. Now you shan't go till you take a cup of coffee. Here's the cream. He left it at the wrong door. The stupid Kate could not get away. And Belle had told the truth. Laramie was gone. End of Chapter 11 Chapter 12 of Laramie Holds the Range by Frank Spearman This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. Chapter 12 The Barbecue Whatever the shortcomings of the American Frontier Code, there never was a time in its history when a man could violate the principles of fair play and keep public opinion on his side. In this instance, Stone's conduct reacted unfavorably on the cattlemen. The townspeople that made money out of the trade of the big ranches always stood up for the cattlemen, but they were put most unpleasantly on the defensive by the incident. Even had Stone's attempt on Laramie's life succeeded, it would have been easier for the partisans to handle than the failure it proved. As a fate accompli, it would have been regretted, but forgotten. As a failure, it settled nothing. Among the few townspeople that sturdily retained independence of opinion on all matters, none stood higher than the surgeon, Dr. Carpey. And, encountering Doubleday in the street shortly after the Stone incident, he took it on himself to talk to him. The doctor had his office at his home, but back of the prescription case in his little drug store, no bigger than a minute, he had a small room for emergency consultations. To this he invited Doubleday, and, having ushered him in, seated him and closed the door. Carpey sat down. There's few man-barb in this country, the doctor began, that dare talk to you the way you ought to be talked to, of them few I'm probably the only one that would take the trouble. Your enemies won't talk and everybody friendly with you is afraid of you. You've got so much property and stuff here they're plumb afraid of you. I'm a poor man-barb, don't ever expect to be anything else, and I don't give a hang for anybody, a word that erratic surgeon, and nobody gives a hang for me. Doubleday, chewing the stub of a cigar, eyed his medical advisor with an unsympathetic stare, but this in no way disturbed the self-appointed critic. For a long time now, barb, he continued, you've been in the nastiest kind of a fight on Jim Laramie. You've tried to run him off the range and you've tried to beat him out of his land and you've tried to break him. He's got the best land in the falling wall and he's in your way. One time his wires all pulled off his fence. Another time your foreman pokes a gun into his stomach. Doubleday flared up. Am I the only man that Laramie's got differences with? When his fence is tore down, I'm out of blame. I'm out of blame for every drink Tom Stone takes. What are you talking about? Demanded Doubleday with violence. The doctor could not have been calmer had he been reaching at the critical moment of an operation for Doubleday's appendix. Be patient a minute, be calm, barb. I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I don't know who cut his wire. I don't know who done it and I won't undertake to say. But what I do say to you, barb, and I say it hard, you're making a big mistake on this man. And if you don't slow up, it'll cost you your life yet. Doubleday was grimly silent. I've known Jim Laramie, Carpe went on, since he was a boy. He's stubborn as a bronco if you try to write him. He's the easiest man in the world to get along with if you make a friend of him. No matter what said of Jim Laramie, there ain't a crook's hair in his head, but he's no angel and when his patience quits, look out. What I'm going to tell you now, barb, is on the square. It can't go no further. I tell you because you ought to know. A while back, just after his wire pulling, Jim Laramie walked into this room, shut the door and locked it and sat down right where you're sitting now. He told me the wire story. He told me he was through. He had tracked the man to your ranch and he was going to square accounts with you and Stone and Van Horn. He was on his way to the junction and he told me he might not come back. And wanted to tell me how to dispose of his property. He was after you and he met, before he fell down, to get some or all of you. He asked me where you were because he heard I knew. I did know, but I didn't tell him. I lied, barb, I told him the mines. But I knew you were at the junction. He started for the mines. What happened to turn him off your trail I never yet learned? I never asked. Now you saw, or you heard anyway, what happened when Stone tried to kill him the other night. That man never can get Laramie and don't depend on Stone and Van Horn to play you fair, for if they had to save their hides, barb, they'd sell you. My advice is this. Put back Laramie's wire. Let the cattlemen, you and Pettigrew, to lead them, do it to clear their own names. Say you know nothing about it, but it was a dirty trick. And tell this town that cattlemen fight, but they fight fair. It'll do more to set you right and set everything else right on the range than anything else you could possibly do. And don't make a mistake. Laramie will follow the wire pulling for years, but what he'll get the man that did it? I know him. He's got a memory like an Indian. With all well-meaning and candid friends, the doctor found himself at once in a deal of angry abuse. But, as he explained, he had taken so much abuse from patients at various periods of his career, and abuse fully justified, that nothing barb could add, deserved or undeserved, to the volume would move him. As our old governor back in Wisconsin said, Barb, I seen my duty and I done it was the doctor's only retort to Doubleday's wrath. Now, if you're in a hurry, Barb, don't let me keep you. Not a minute. I had my say, and if there's anything pressing you down street, go to it. But angry as Doubleday appeared, Carpe had given him something to think about. Consultations were held, by precisely whom no one could say, but in them there was dissension. Van Horn vehemently opposed any further obituaries to Laramie, and he was vastly put out at being overruled. While the discussions were going on, he talked in a veiled but emphatic way to Kate about the queer way her father was acting. Van Horn would shake his head with violent emphasis at the way things were going, but when Kate poured oil on the waters of his discontent, Van Horn was always responsive and stayed to supper, or for the evening, if he were asked, and Kate was alone. On the gentler side, however, he could make no headway. When he tried headaches for sympathy, Kate was stony-hearted. When he asked her one day at the spring to take down her hair, she told him she wore a wig. He looked at her, amazed. And in spite of his objections to placating Laramie, a decision very unpalatable to him was reached. Pettigrew, as spokesman, approached Laramie and insisted in order to allay bad feelings on replacing the barbed wire. When Laramie declared the wire must be put back by the men that had cut it, there was naturally an impasse. But Tennyson and Carpe aided jointly by the representations of Le Fever and Saudi, induced Laramie to forego his punitive attitude and accept the amend as offered. This, as the doctor had predicted, put a pleasanter face on the tangled affairs of the range. And to strike while their iron was hot, and to keep it hot, the cattleman announced a big Fourth of July celebration, at which old scores should be forgotten, and friends and enemies meet in good fellowship. The place for it, after much talk, was fixed at Doubleday's ranch. The saloon keepers of Sleepy Cat, except Tennyson, fought this, but they lost out. Since her own home was to be the scene of the celebration, Kate took a particular interest in the undertaking. She made herself, in a way, hostess, and her father gave her a free reign. The eager crowd that responded to the public invitation found awaiting them as they picturesquely rode in twos and threes and groups up the creek to the ranch house, all the fixings for a rousing celebration. Men came for as much as fifty miles, and some of them by trails and overpasses Kate had never even heard of. There were cattlemen, cowboys, sheepmen, little ranchers, all the conflicting elements of the country, besides a crowd from Sleepy Cat with the band, and all the town loafers that could possibly secure conveyance. There was, for these latter worthies, the attraction of a free feed, for they knew the prodigality of cattlemen. But there was also the underlying hope that where so discordant elements were assembled, a fight might occur, and nobody wanted to miss a fight. The principles necessary for a serious affair were present. The fact that all were armed was not significant, merely prudent. Men careless on this point were no longer attending celebrations of any sort around Sleepy Cat. From the falling wall came the wrestlers, every one of them except double day's old foreman, Abe Hawke, who scorned all pretense of compromise. He advised Laramie not to go near the celebration, when Laramie intimated he might go Abe was greatly incensed. A master of bitter sarcasm, he trained his batteries on his sandy-haired friend, and these failing he warned him he would be in serious danger. He intimated that the scene was to get the wrestlers all together and finish them in a bunch, in which event one as hated as Laramie could hardly hope to escape unmolested. But Laramie persisted in his resolve to go, and he went. Dr. Carpe made it a point to go. He was usually needed professionally at Fourth of July celebrations, but on this occasion he was, in a matter of fact, a sort of sponsor for the whole affair, and he brought Saudi, Lafever, and Tennyson along. The four drove out in the smartest wagon and behind the best team in the kitchen barn, kitchen with them and Macalpin driving. By noon the big end of the crowd had arrived. The barbecue tables were set out under the trees along the creek. The roasting itself was in the skilled hands of John Fryingpan, and before one o'clock he was ready to serve. Doubleday had told Kate, when arranging for the tables, that his particular friends would sit at his table and she was on her way down to the creek to ask him how many would be in the party when whom should she find him talking with, of all men, but Laramie, who had just ridden over from the falling wall. Before Kate could retreat her father had seen her. He called her over. To her astonishment he insisted on introducing her to his friend, Jim Laramie, of whom he was making as much as it was possible to make a woolly, undemonstrative man. The band not far away was playing full tilt. Kate wished they could have made even more noise to hide her confusion, but there was nothing except to face the situation, much as it surprised her. Laramie, unfortunately, seemed indisposed to say anything. He spent most of his time listening. Kate, being far from animated, her father was left to do the honors. And on such rare occasions as Barb was communicative he was quite capable of good fellowship. Laramie, however, seemingly under some restraint, soon made excuses and left to join the crowd. Some of the little ranchmen had brought their wives along. A few of these women had their babies with them and Kate returned to the house where she made the mothers comfortable. There her father afterwards run across her. He stopped as he came up. You remember that man I introduced you to, Laramie? Very well, asserted Kate, wondering. Treat him well at dinner. But I'm going to eat here at the house, he shook his head. You eat at the creek at my table. She had no choice but to obey. When she returned it to the pits the stones had been removed and John frying pan with a pair of sleepy cat ice tongs was lifting out the first big chunks of roasted meat. The crowd, being called, ran for the creek whooping and yelling. And while Kate watched John and his helpers dish up the meat the guests, nearly all men, seated themselves pel mel at the long benches. It was a nausea assemblage overflowing with good nature and when Kate, very trim in Calderoi, appeared again at the tables the demonstrative ones rose and led in a burst of cheers. Kate enjoyed it but when they began calling for a speech she ran to join her father. She found him and the old man petty grew at the table. Laramie calmly seated with them and the fourth place waiting for her. Van Horn, as host to other cattlemen and guests, presided at the next table. Unluckily, where he sat, he could see Laramie opposite Kate. But if he was discomfited the group at the next table below, where Dr. Carpe presided, flanked by Lafever, Saudi, Kitchen, and Macalpin, was correspondingly elated at the spectacle of the falling wall and the crazy woman sitting in harmony. Despite the unpleasant stories Kate had heard about him she found nothing to complain of in Laramie's manners. But he was, she told herself, on his good behavior and under the circumstances would naturally try to appear at his best. Little as she relished her assignment of making things pleasant for him the friendly spirit of the occasion to some extent infected her and soon she found it not difficult to help along with small talk and make the queer combination at the table go. There was really no great need for her to work hard in this way. Both her father and Pettigrew were very lively. Laramie seemed a bit dazed at being set up with such honors in the house of his enemies. But though he did not volunteer much when Kate said anything that afforded a chance for comment, he improved it. The talk when a good deal to cattle in range matters that Pettigrew, a crafty fellow, told good stories about men that everybody in and out of Sleepy Cat knew and appealed frequently to Laramie for confirmation or a laugh. Some of the laughs he got were a little dry but they were not ill-natured and Kate enjoyed the rough humor. The two cattlemen finished their dinner and without ceremony got up to see how the crowd was being served, leaving Kate with Laramie. How do you like, old Pettigrew? was the first thing Laramie asked as the bearded cattlemen moved away with her father. The only thing I don't like about him, answered Kate candidly, is his eyes. She was looking at Laramie as she spoke. You are a good observer, he said. How so? A man's eyes are all there is to him. You don't mind if I smoke? Not a bit. He drew a sack of tobacco from his breast pocket. Not going to run away, are you? He was fishing for a cigarette paper when he asked. He spoke as if he had no special interest in the matter, yet the question startled her. Kate had not made a move to go, but she was thinking when the question came of how she might manage to escape. She flushed a little at being anticipated in her intention, just enough perhaps to let him see he had caught her. Not to say, irritated her. As luck would have it Van Horn, who had risen, sauntered towards them. Kate was glad just then to see him. I hope you got enough to eat, she said, as he approached. He seemed stiff. Kate did not realize what he was put out about. He made some answer and turned to Laramie. She felt at once the friction between the two men, not for anything she had reasoned to suspect or know, for she knew then nothing whatever of their personal relations. Nor was it from anything said. For an instant neither man spoke. Instinct must have made her conscious, for as soon as Van Horn looked at Laramie, she felt the tension. Well, Jim, where'd you blow from? demanded Van Horn after a pause. Laramie was making ready to smoke. He was in no haste to answer, nor did he look at Van Horn, but continued, cowboy fashion, rolling his cigarette in the fingertips of one hand, his other hand resting on his hip. I didn't blow, he retorted. How'd you get here, asked Van Horn. I was invited, Van Horn laughed significantly. While Kate would rather have been out of it, she thought it proper, since she was in it, to say something herself. I didn't suppose anybody needed a special invitation for a Fourth of July celebration, she interposed. The town has been covered for two weeks with bills inviting everybody. Van Horn laughed again. It wasn't you invited him, huh? He demanded of Kate. The thing was said so unpleasantly, she wouldn't have retorted on impulse, but Laramie took any possible words out of her mouth. Why don't you ask me who invited me? Barb Doubleday invited me, that's enough, isn't it? And Pettigrew invited me, and, he added, completing his cigarette in leisurely fashion. While that wouldn't be any particular inducement, you invited me, Van Horn stared. How do you make that out, he asked quickly. You asked me to take in this barbecue when you tried to get me to line up with you at the mountain house, Van Horn took alarm. That was put up to you in confidence, he said angrily. So was the barbecue, responded Laramie. I wouldn't take in the first proposition, so I'm enjoying the second. He turned from Van Horn and, ignoring him, spoke to Kate. You remember you said you were going to show me your ponies? It was Kate's turn to stare. You must be mistaken. He did not press the subject. Perhaps you've forgotten, was all he said. When and where did I ever say that, Kate asked, resenting the intimation. He looked down, then looking up, his eyes rested on Kate's. He was not disturbed. Is that a challenge? he asked. If you wish to make it one, she returned coolly. The where was one day at Sleepy Cat Junction. The when was the day we rode up the Falling Wall River. Oh, she exclaimed, collecting herself. I had forgotten. Do you remember now? He asked, and she thought there was a resentment in the question. If you don't, he added. We'll let it go. Why, I suppose I must have said something like that. Anyway, she added. We'll go see them to make sure I've kept a promise. Come, Mr. Van Horn, she suggested, turning sweetly to him. Don't you want to see the ponies? To include Van Horn it was plain to be seen. It would spoil the trip for Laramie. But she cared little for that. Wait just a minute, she continued. I must tell John frying pan before I go to get the Indians something to eat. The feeling between the two men she left together flared up at once. Does this mean you're going to hitch up with the cattlemen after all? Demanded Van Horn. Laramie, who had lighted his cigarette, stood looking after Kate. I hitch up with nobody. Then don't spend your time hanging around Kate double day. So that's where the shoe pinches. Laramie threw away his cigarette as he spoke. I've taken a good deal from you, Van Horn. Van Horn egged him on unabashed. You've got your nerve with you to show up here at all. A man needs his nerve, Van Horn, to do business with crooks like you. Double day passing near the two men at that moment heard the last exchange. He called out in his heavy, raspy voice to Van Horn. Look here, Harry. Laramie walked away and double day took Van Horn in hand. You messed up things once with Laramie, didn't you? And you didn't get him, did you? Continue double day choking off Van Horn's words. Now we've got him here. Let me run this thing. I can tell you right now you won't line him up. Blurted out Van Horn, very angry. Double day had a way of raising his chin to override objection and his voice grew huskier with stubbornness. Just let me run this thing, will you? Do as you please, retorted Van Horn, but with a stiff expletive that irritated Barb still further. Then, swinging on his heel, Van Horn marched off. Barb was so incensed he could only keep his raised finger pointed after Van Horn, and as his eyes blazed he shouted through a very fog of throats scrapping, I will. End of Chapter 12