for Kate until
some could be prepared. A room had to be made ready and there was no
bed or furniture. And Belle told her that her father spent most of his
time at the Junction, anyway, where he had a cottage. She explained
about the railroad branching off the main line at the Junction. Her
father had built this to coal mines on the Falling Wall river. He was
supposed to own this branch line and the mines, but she hinted strongly
that his creditors had got everything there was of the railroad but the
rust, and would sometime get that.

Kate wished her new acquaintance had been less candid.

CHAPTER IV

AT THE EATING HOUSE

Doubleday drove the two women down from the ranch. At the Junction
there were, besides the railroad eating house, a few houses and a few
stores, and almost as many saloons as at Sleepy Cat itself--the place
being, Belle said, a shipping point both for cattle and for miners.

Kate was relieved to find her father's cottage, on a hill across the
railroad track, quite livable-looking. It was, like all the other
houses, one story and square, being divided into kitchen, dining-room
and two bedrooms. The interior, its shiny furniture covered with dust,
was dreary enough, but Kate knew she could make the place presentable,
and after the first few days in her new surroundings, began to recover
her high spirits. Her father had not yet said she was to stay; but she
thought he liked her--Belle told her as much--and she set about making
her woman's hand felt. Her father took his meals at the eating-house,
and the cottage had been indifferently cared for by old Henry, the
eating-house porter. Kate, as a housekeeper, was a marked improvement,
one that even so absorbed a man as her father could not but notice.

She naturally spent much time at the eating-house herself, because
Belle, her sole acquaintance at the Junction, was there.

"How you going to like it out here?" demanded Belle, scrutinizing Kate
critically, after she had known her a few months.

"I love it," was the prompt answer.

Belle seemed dismayed: "How about the alkali?" she asked, as if to
convict Kate of deceit.

Kate only nodded: "It's all right."

"And the sagebrush?"

"I like it."

"And the greasewood?"

"Why not?"

Belle had begun to like Kate's laugh: "Not going to get lonesome out in
this country?" Belle flung at her, as a gloomy clincher.

"Lonesome!" At this idea Kate laughed outright. "Do I look it?" s