ess furtively at Kate. But he
found out, despite his seeming stupidity, a lot that it would have
taken the big men hours to learn.

"If you don't want to take a rig and driver," announced McAlpin, after
all had been canvassed, "there's the stage for the fort; they had to
wait for the mail. Bill Bradley is on tonight. I'm thinkin' he'll set
y' over from the ford--it's only a matter o' two or three miles."

"Are there any other passengers?" asked Kate doubtfully.

"Belle Shockley for the Reservation," answered McAlpin, promptly,
"if--she ain't changed her mind, it bein' so late."

Sawdy put a brusque end to this uncertainty: "She's down there at the
Mountain House waitin'--seen her myself not ten minutes ago."

Scurrying away, McAlpin came back in a jiffy with the driver, Bradley.
Thin, bent and grizzled though he was, Kate thought she saw under the
broad but shabby hat and behind the curtain of scraggly beard and deep
wrinkles dependable eyes and felt reassured.

"How far is it to the ranch?" she asked of the queer-looking Bradley.

"Long ways, the way you go, ain't it, Bill?" McAlpin turned to the old
driver for confirmation.

"'Bout fourteen mile," answered Bradley, "to the ford."

"What time should I get there?" asked Kate again.

Bradley stood pat.

"What time'll she get there, Bill?" demanded Lefever.

"Twelve o'clock," hazarded Bradley tersely. "Or," he added, "I'll stop
when I pass the ranch 'n' tell 'em to send a rig down in the mornin'."

"That would take you out of your way," Kate objected.

"Not a great ways."

A man that would go to this trouble in the middle of the night for
someone he had never seen before, Kate deemed safe to trust. "No," she
said, "I'll go with you, if I may."

The way in which she spoke, the sweetness and simplicity of her words,
moved Sawdy and Lefever, the first a widower and the second a bachelor,
and even stirred McAlpin, a married man. But they had no particular
effect on Bradley. The blandishments of young womanhood were past his
time of day.

With Lefever carrying the suitcase and nearly everybody talking at
once, the party walked around to the rear door of the baggage-room.

The stage had been backed up, a hostler in the driver's seat, and the
mail and express were being loaded. Sawdy volunteered to save time by
fetching Belle Shockley from the hotel, and while McAlpin and Lefever
inspected and discussed the horses--for the condition of which McAlpin,