your lunch."

"I don't want any."

Belle caught Kate's arm: "Now you just hold on. What's the matter? Is
it Laramie?" Belle must have read her face for she answered nothing,
only tried to get away. "But, child!" she exclaimed. "Where's your
coat--wait till I bring it--and your gloves!" Kate paused at the door.
In a minute Belle came running back: "He's gone, absolutely. There
isn't a soul anywhere about. Now you shan't go till you take a cup of
coffee. Here's the cream--he left it at the wrong door, the stupid!"

Kate could not get away. And Belle had told the truth: Laramie was
gone.

CHAPTER XII

THE BARBECUE

Whatever the shortcomings of the American frontier code there never was
a time in its history when a man could violate the principles of fair
play and keep public opinion on his side. In this instance, Stone's
conduct reacted unfavorably on the cattlemen. The townspeople that
made money out of the trade of the big ranches always stood up for the
cattlemen, but they were put most unpleasantly on the defensive by the
incident. Even had Stone's attempt on Laramie's life succeeded it
would have been easier, for the partisans, to handle than the failure
it proved. As a _fait accompli_ it would have been regretted, but
forgotten; as a failure it settled nothing.

Among the few townspeople that sturdily retained independence of
opinion on all matters, none stood higher than the surgeon, Doctor
Carpy. And encountering Doubleday in the street shortly after the
Stone incident, he took it on himself to talk to him.

The doctor had his office at his home, but back of the prescription
case in his little drug store--no bigger than a minute--he had a small
room for emergency consultations. To this he invited Doubleday, and,
having ushered him in, seated him and closed the door, Carpy sat down:
"There's few men, Barb, in this country," the doctor began, "that dare
talk to you the way you ought to be talked to; of them few, I'm
probably the only one that would take the trouble. Your enemies won't
talk and everybody friendly with you is afraid of you. You've got so
much property and stuff here they're plumb afraid of you. I'm a poor
man, Barb--don't never expect to be anything else, and I don't give a
hang for anybody," averred the erratic surgeon, "and nobody gives a
hang for me."

Doubleday, chewing the stub of a cigar, eyed his medical adviser with
an unsympathetic stare, but this in no way