Bradley, pleased with his
confidence safely made, talked on. He found a pride in talking to
Kate, with Kelly in and out of the room, and launched into unrestrained
eulogies of the famed rustler, always the friend of the poor man, once
king of the great north range itself.

"It's a pity," murmured Kate, when she felt she must say something,
"that he ever went wrong."

Bradley had a point to offer even on that. "It's a pity they ever
blacklisted him; that was Stone's get-up. And Stone, when I was
sheriff, was the biggest thief in the county an' the county was four
times as big then as it is now--that's 'tween you 'n' me."

"Were you ever sheriff, Bill?"

"You won't believe it, but it's so--dash me 'n' dash drunkards one and
all."

"I hear, though," returned Kate, only because in her distress of mind
she could think of nothing else to say, "that Tom Stone has stopped
drinking."

"That man," was Bradley's retort, and he kept his tremulous voice still
far down in his throat, "is mean enough to do any d--d thing."

"You used to be sheriff?"

"Yes. And when I was sheriff, Kate, I found out it was better to trust
an honest man turned thief than a thief turned honest man."

Kate, listening to his halting maunderings, hardly heeded them. She
heard in her troubled ears the rush of mad waters; phantom voices
cracked again in pistoled oaths at the horses, the fear of sudden death
clutched at her heart, and in the dreadful dark a powerful arm caught
her again and drew her, helpless, out of an engulfing flood.

She got out of doors. The sunshine, clear and calm, belied the
possibility of a night such as Bradley's words had summoned. "Dead,"
she kept saying to herself. Laramie had been sure he would get out of
the creek. What could it mean?

She went back to the kitchen where Bradley, eating supper, had switched
from his long-winded topic. Kate had to question him: "What was the
matter with Abe? When did he die?" she asked, as unconcernedly as she
could.

There was little satisfaction in Bradley's slow, formal answer: "Some's
got it one way and some's got it another, Kate. I can't rightly say
what ailded him or when he died 'n' I guess nobody else can, f'r sure.
Some says he got shot; some says he was drownded 'a' las' Tuesday night
in the Crazy Woman; some says they's been a fight nobody's heard of
yit, 't' all. The only man that knows for sure--if he does know--is
the man that brought him into Sleepy Cat