om the first
instant I saw her, and every instant since, as I thought a woman ought
to be treated--would like to be treated. Now I get my reward. She
calls me a thief--and, my God! I take it. I don't ride out and kill
her father who taught her to do it, quick as I can reach him; I just
take it!" he exclaimed.

He hesitated a moment. Then he flung a question at her like a
thunderbolt: "What do you want here?"

She was frightened. His rage was plain enough; who could tell the
lengths to which it might carry him?

She kept her dignity but she answered and without quibbling: "I want
some gauze and some cotton and some medicines."

He strode to the cabinet and, concealing the movement as he unlocked it
with Carpy's key, he threw open the glass door: "You'd be all night
finding the stuff," he said curtly, taking the supplies from various
cluttered piles on different shelves. "You say he wants this tonight,"
he added, when her packet was complete: "How are you going to get it to
him?"

"Carry it to him."

"At Pettigrew's? What do you mean? It would take an experienced
horseman all night to ride around by Black Creek."

"I'm going over the pass."

He could not conceal his anger: "Does your father know that?"

"He said I might try it."

Laramie flamed again: "A fine father to send a tenderfoot girl on a
night ride into a country like that!"

She was defiant: "I can ride anywhere a man can."

"Let me tell you," he faced her and his eyes flashed, "if you try
riding 'anywhere' too often, some night your father's daughter will
fail to get home!"

Ignoring the door, he stepped to the open window by which he had
entered and, springing through it, was gone.

CHAPTER XXI

THE HIDING PLACE

Disdaining any further attempt at concealment, Laramie rode angrily
over to Kitchen's barn; anyone that wanted a dispute with him just then
could have it, and promptly. Kitchen got up his horse and, cutting
short the liveryman's attempt to talk, Laramie headed for home.

The sky was studded with a glory of stars. He rode fast, his fever of
anger acting as a spur to his anxiety, which was to get back to dress
Hawk's wounds.

His thoughts raced with the hoofs of his horse. Nothing could have
galled and humiliated him more than to realize how Kate Doubleday
regarded him. Plainly she looked on him as no better than one of the
ordinary rustlers of the Falling Wall country. This was distressingly
clear; yet he k