le money saved and a little borrowed from McAlpin, Belle 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,
Belle could cook.

Kitchen's barn was headquarters for the small ranchers from the north
and for the Falling Wall men, and McAlpin soon had a trade seeking
Belle'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
Belle served her meals. Very soon, however, she made trouble for
McAlpin. It developed that she would not serve anybody she did not
like and as her fancy was capricious she gave most of McAlpin's
following the cold shoulder. He spent much time in the beginning,
hot-footing it, as Belle termed it, between the barn and the cottage
trying to straighten things out. In the end he gave over and told
Belle she could starve if she wanted to. Whereupon she said tartly
that she did want to; and McAlpin 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 hardy friends of the barn boss did find favor at
the cottage and he the last whom McAlpin would have picked for a likely
favorite. This was Jim Laramie. Laramie soon became a regular
customer of Belle's and his friends naturally followed him.

The closing out of her father's interests at the Junction was without
regret for Kate, since it sent her up to 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 oftener 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 Belle; sometimes she lunched
with her. Belle was a stickler in her home for neatness, even though
the cyclone might have been supposed to harden her to dust.

More than this, Belle 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 Belle'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 Belle got the gossip of
the country was because her customers were men. Kate was probably the
only woman, certainly