wouldn't leave him there alone.
Belle said I might bring him here. I'm spending my last night with
him."

"You're not trying to spare me, are you?" she asked, unsteadily. "He
really did get out of the creek?"

"He did get out."

She spoke again brokenly: "He saved my life."

"Well," remarked Laramie, meditating, "he wouldn't ask anything much
for that. Do you mind if I smoke?"

"Not a bit."

"I'm kind of nervous tonight," he confessed simply. Then he crossed
the room, rested his elbow on the mantelpiece and made ready a
cigarette. "I wonder," he said, "if I could ask you a question?"

"What is it?"

"You always act kind of queer with me. Why is it? You've never been
the way you were the first day we met. Haven't I always been square
with you?"

She hesitated but she answered honestly: "You always have."

"Then why are you so different?"

"I've made that confession once. I was acting a part that day."

"No, I can't figure it in that way. That day you were acting natural.
Why can't you be like that again."

"But, Mr. Laramie----"

"No--Jim."

"But----"

"Every time you call me Mr. Laramie I'm looking around for a gentleman.
Why can't you be the way you were the first time?"

She realized his eyes were on her, demanding the truth--and his eyes
were uncomfortably steady as she had reason to know. "If I spoke I
should hurt your feelings," she urged, summoning all her courage. "You
know as well as I do that the first time I met you I didn't know who
you were."

He did not seem much disconcerted, except that he tossed away the
unlighted cigarette. "You don't know now," was his only comment.

"I can't help knowing what is said about you--you and your friends."

He made an impatient gesture. "That gives you no clue to me."

"What are people to believe when such stories are public property?"

"Only what they know to be true."

"How are they to find out what is true?"

"By going straight to the person most concerned in the stories."

"Would you honestly expect a young woman to go to work and investigate
all the charges against men she hears in Sleepy Cat?"

"We are talking now about the charges against one man--against me. I
want to give you an instance:

"I suppose there's been a good many hard words over your way about my
keeping Abe Hawk out of the hands of your people. Because I did
shelter him--you know how--they've blackened my name here at Sleepy Cat
and down at Medicine