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ded for the shot and their breaths hung on each flying leap that brought the rider nearer his last chance. The sixth target was separated by barely fifty yards from the fifth. Laramie had covered half the distance when he completely reversed his form. He stretched gradually up in the saddle and riding close in on the target itself, rose to his full height in the stirrups and smashed his fifth shot almost straight down on it; the potato split into a dozen fragments. Bill Bradley at the sixth was watching for Sawdy; his hat sailed twenty feet in the air. The yelling crowd rode Laramie down as he galloped in a long circle back, his lines swung on his forearm, while he slipped four fresh cartridges into the warm cylinder of his revolver. He dismounted to ease his cinches. "I guess I over-did it," he explained to the friends that crowded closest. "I got the cinches a little tight. The pony didn't like it. I couldn't get the gait in time for the Number Five. But I knew I could make Number Six." Remounting, he made his way through the crowd back over the course. Kate was still on the hill. "You won, didn't you?" she cried as he rode toward her. "If I hadn't, I guess I'd have had to head straight across the creek for home. Could you see?" "I watched you the whole way. What a long arm you have." "While these tin horns are counting their money, would you like to show me the ponies?" "You have a long memory, too." "I was brought up a good deal with Indians. Shall I hunt up Van Horn to go with us?" She darted a quick glance at him: "Why, yes, surely," she retorted, "if you want him." Laramie was tearing out a cigarette paper: "I could look at them without him," he returned calmly. "I don't see him, anyway," murmured Kate, professing to sweep the crowded course with her eyes. "Don't look too hard," cautioned Laramie. "I suppose we might save time," she suggested, ignoring his last remark, "by going without him." CHAPTER XIV LEFEVER ASKS QUESTIONS Those closest to headquarters sometimes know least of what is going on. That the big celebration at the ranch could have been anything more or less than what it professed to be, did not occur to Kate; nor could anyone actually say that it was more or less. Hawk could contemptuously refuse its overtures; Laramie could for reasons of his own accept them; the Falling Wall rustlers were out for a good time or they would not have been rust
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