KATE DEFIES
The instant he saw Kate in Hawk's keeping, Laramie rode down with the
flood, looking sharply for a chance to get out the two horses; when
finally he did get them ashore he was spent. Leading Kate's horse, he
made his way up-creek through the willows to where she should be with
Hawk.
Hawk's horse he found browsing in the heavy wet grass at the old ford.
Neither Kate nor Hawk were in sight. Laramie walked down to the
water's edge where Hawk had pulled her out. Familiar with the meander
of the bank below the ford, he saw what had happened. The bank,
under-cut, had been swallowed by the flood. Laramie ran down stream
and came suddenly on Kate standing alone on a rock jutting out above
the torrent.
In the uncertain light of the gray morning he saw her anxious face.
She explained what had happened. Laramie showed no alarm. "I guess
Abe will handle himself," he said.
"Can't we do anything to help him?"
"I'll put you on your trail, then I'll ride down the creek and look for
him. He'll make it if his strength doesn't give out."
Laramie took Kate up the creek and, riding through the hills, brought
her, unexpectedly, out on a trail within sight of her father's
ranch-house hardly three miles away. He pointed to a break heading
from the creek. "You can follow that draw almost to the house," he
explained. Then, reining about, he wheeled his horse to take the back
trail. "Are you going to run away without giving me a chance to thank
you?" she exclaimed, with a feminine touch of surprise.
"There's a gate near the head of the draw where you can get through the
wire," he rejoined stubbornly.
"I can't see how I can ever repay you for what you've done tonight,"
she persisted.
He was coldly uncompromising. "You needn't bother about any pay, if
that's what you call it."
Skilfully she drew her horse a step closer to him. "What shall I call
it?" she asked innocently, "debt, obligation? I owe you a lot, ever so
much to me--my life."
"I've done no more for you than I've done for less than a human being,"
he returned impatiently.
"I'm sure that's so. But human beings," she added, with a touch of
gentle good-nature, "are supposed to have more feeling than cows or
steers, you know."
"I never had a cow or a steer call me names," he retorted rudely.
"If you weren't a human being you wouldn't mind being called names; you
wouldn't be so angry with me, either."
"I'm not angry," he said resentfully. His very helplessness in her
hands pricked her conscience at the moment that it restored her
supremacy. His strength might menace others--she at least had nothing
to fear from it.
"Do you know," she exclaimed, shaking off for the moment all restraint,
"what I'd like to do?"
He looked at her surprised.
"I'd like to ride back this minute with you and help find Abe Hawk. I
know I mustn't," she went on as he listened. "But I'd like to," she
persisted hurriedly. And then, afraid of herself more than of him, she
repressed a quick "good-by" and, without giving him time to answer,
galloped away.
She reached the ranch-house without further difficulty. No one was
stirring. She stopped at the corral and turned in her horse and,
walking awkwardly on her swollen ankle to the kitchen, built a fire,
warmed herself as best she could and went to her room. By the time her
father was stirring, Kate, under her coverlets, quite exhausted, was
fast asleep.
It was broad day when she woke. Through an open window, she saw sullen
gray clouds still rolling down from the northwest, but between them the
sun shot out at ragged intervals--the storm had broken. Walking
gingerly from her room, on her lame foot, she found the house empty.
Her father, Kelly told her, had gone out early, and she sat down to a
late breakfast glad to be undisturbed in her thoughts. Her mind was
still in a confusion of opinions; some, long-cherished being crowded,
so to say, to the wall; others, more than once rejected, growing
bolder. It was in this mental condition that her seclusion was invaded
by Van Horn.
He swept off his hat with a show of spirits. "Just heard you'd got
home." He sat down with her at the table. "Everybody thought you
stayed in town last night. Got lost, eh?"
Kate raised her coffee cup non-committally. "For awhile," she murmured
between sips.
"What time did you get here?"
"I was so glad to get to bed I never looked at my watch." Again she
regarded him, quite innocently, over the rim of her cup. "Did anybody
lose any stock?"
He did not abandon his inquisition willingly, but each time he asked a
question, Kate parried and asked one in turn. He gave up without
having gained any information she meant to withhold.
It was not hard to keep him in good humor; indeed, it was rather too
easy. He pushed back his chair, crossed his legs, talked of a strong
cattle market for the fall and spoke of Hawk and the hunt he was
keeping up for him. "They had a story around--or some of the boys had
the idea--that his friends would pick a wet night like last night to
take him into town."
"Is he still in the country?"
"Sure he is. Say, Kate," he changed his attitude as lightly as he did
his subject--uncrossed his legs, squared himself in his chair and threw
his elbows on the table.
She met the new disposition with a tone of prudent reserve: "What is
it?"
"When are you going to do something for a lonesome old scout?" he asked
bluntly.
With as little concern as possible, she put down her knife and fork,
and, with her hands seeking her napkin, looked at him. "What do you
mean?" she returned collectedly, "by 'doing something'?"
"Marry me."
"Never."
The passage was disconcertingly quick. Van Horn, thrown quite aback,
remonstrated. His discomfiture was so undisguised that Kate was
embarrassed. The next moment he was very angry. "If that's the case,"
he blurted out, "what's the use o' my sticking around here fighting
your battles?"
"You're not fighting my battles."
"Maybe you don't call 'em your father's, either," he exclaimed
scornfully.
"They're your own battles," declared Kate. "You know that as well as I
do."
"All the same, your father gets the benefit of them," he continued
hotly.
"I wish to heaven he had kept out of them."
Van Horn eyed her sharply. His face reflected his sarcasm. "Of
course, you needn't worry," he grinned, with implication. "They
wouldn't steal your horse even if you do always leave it in Kitchen's
barn; the Falling Wall bunch think too much of you for that."
Surprised as she was at this outbreak, Kate kept her head. "There are
some of the rustlers I'd trust as far as I would some of the raiders,"
she rejoined coolly.
"Why don't you say Jim Laramie," he exclaimed harshly.
"Jim Laramie," she returned defiantly, "is not the only one."
"He'll be the 'only one' after our next clean-up in the Falling Wall.
And he won't be 'one' if he doesn't change his tune."
Kate's eyes were snapping fire. "Take care that next time the Falling
Wall doesn't clean you up," she said bitingly.
He snorted. "I mean it," she exclaimed. "Next time you'll need to
look out for yourself."
He bolted from his chair. "That's the first time I ever heard anybody
on this ranch take sides with the men that's robbing it--or carry a
threat to this ranchhouse for rustlers."
"Call it whatever you please, you won't change my opinion of you. But,
of course, I'm only a woman and don't know anything."
"I'm thinking you know a whole lot more than you let on," he declared.
"Anyway, I wish you'd leave this ranch out of the rest of it. If you
keep on 'cleaning up,' as you call it, you'll go farther and fare
worse."
He brought down his fist. "Not until I've cleaned out two more pups,
anyway! Now, look here, Kate," he went on, "you may be fooling about
this marrying, but you can bet I'm not."
"Well, you can bet _I'm_ not," she returned, echoing his pert slang
sharply.
"Who's the man?" He flung the question at her point-blank.
If she flushed the least bit it was with anger at his rudeness. "There
isn't any man, and there isn't going to be any--so please never talk
again about my marrying you or anybody else."
She rose and left the table. He jumped to intercept her and tried to
catch her hands. She let him see she was not in the least afraid and
as he confronted her, she faced him without a tremor. "Let me pass!"
She fairly snapped out the words.
Van Horn, without moving, broke into a boisterous laugh. Kelly walked
in just then from the kitchen and Van Horn, losing none of his
malevolence, did stand aside.
"All right," he said, "--this time."