ed 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 loitered 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 lunch room door. Everything
was dark.

He caught the hand rail 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: "Gypped!"

But, even then, had Kate heard it she would have been frightened.

CHAPTER VIII

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 fanlike 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 begin--is the stamping ground
of the last of the mountain red men.

But the struggle for possession of the Falling Wall country did not end
with the red men. White men, too, have coveted the lands of the
Falling Wall and fought for them. Among the blind the 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 and the hip holster for
decrees to quiet title.

It is for these reasons, and others, that the Falling Wall country has
borne a hard and somewhat sinister name, even in a region where men
have been habitually indifferent to restraint a