t was she who gave in first:

"You from Medicine Bend?" she asked, as the four horses walked up a
long hill.

"Pittsburgh," answered Kate.

"Pittsburgh!" echoed Belle, startled. "Gee! some trip you've had."

Belle, encouraged, then confessed that a cyclone had given her her own
first start West. She had been blown two blocks in one and had all of
her hair pulled out of her head.

"They said I'd have no chance to get married without any hair," she
continued, "so I got a wig--never _could_ find my own hair--and come
West for a chance. And they're here; if you're looking for a husband
you've come to the right place."

"I haven't the least idea of getting married," protested Kate.

"They'll be after you," declared Belle sententiously.

"Are you married?" ventured Kate.

"Not yet. But they're coming. I'm in no hurry."

She talked freely about her own affairs. She had worked for Doubleday,
for whose ranch Kate was bound. Doubleday had had a chain of eating
houses on the line, as Belle termed the transcontinental railroad.
They had all been taken over except the one where she worked--at Sleepy
Cat Junction--and this would be taken soon, Belle thought.

"That's the trouble with Barb Doubleday," she went on. "He's got too
many irons in the fire--head over heels in debt. There's no money
now-a-days in cattle, anyway. What are you going up to Doubleday's
for?"

"He's my father."

"Your father? Well! I never open my mouth without I put my foot in
it, anyway."

"I've never seen him," continued Kate.

Belle was all interest. She confided to Kate that she was now on her
way, for a visit, to the Reservation where her cousin was teaching in
an Indian school, and divided her time for the next hour between
getting all she could of Kate's story and telling all of her own.

On Kate's part there was no end of questions to ask, about country and
customs and people. When Belle could not answer, she appealed to
Bradley, who, if taciturn, was at least patient. Every time the
conversation lulled and Kate looked out into the night, it seemed as if
they were drawing closer and closer to the stars, the dark desert still
spreading in every direction and the black mountain ridges continually
receding.

CHAPTER II

THE CRAZY WOMAN

They had traveled a long time it seemed to Kate, and having climbed all
the hills in the country, were going down a moderate grade with the
hind wheels sputtering unamiably at t