'n' if he knows he won't
tell." He held out his big enameled cup. "Kelly, gi' me jus' a squirt
o' coffee, will y'?"

Kate, on nettles, waited to hear who had brought Hawk in. Bradley
would not volunteer the name. Some deference was due him as the
purveyor of the big news, and he meant that anyone curious of detail
should do the asking. Kate, realizing this, framed with reluctance the
question he was waiting for: "Who brought Abe in?"

Even so, she knew there would be but one answer. Bradley gulped
another mouthful of scalding coffee and set down his cup. "Jim
Laramie," he answered laconically.

She said to herself that Hawk had never got out of the creek; that he
had drowned miserably in the flood. She tortured herself with
conjecture as to exactly what had happened. And night brought no
relief. Sleepless, she tossed, marveling at how close his death had
come home to her. Every scrap of the meager news added to what she
already knew--pointed to what she most feared.

She lay propped up on her pillows and looked through the open window
out on the glittering stars. Strange constellations passed in
brilliant procession before her eyes. And while she lay thus
reflecting and revolving in her mind the loneliness and unhappiness of
her surroundings, a startling suggestion far removed from these doubts
offered itself to her mind. Repelled at first, it came back as if
demanding acceptance. And not until after she had promised herself she
would consider it, did her thoughts give her any peace. She fell into
an uneasy slumber and woke with day barely breaking; but without an
instant's delay she dressed and slipped from her room out to the barn.

Forehanded as she had been in getting an early start, Bradley was
already stirring. Pail in hand, the old man, standing in front of the
feed bin, stared at Kate speechless as she walked in on him.

"Who's sick?" he demanded after a moment.

"Nobody, Bill. I'm going to town with you, that's all."

"With _me_?"

She half laughed at herself and at his surprise. "I mean, I'm for town
early. Get up a pony for me--Spider Legs will do."

Born of long-forgotten experience in waiting for women, Bill Bradley,
as Kate walked away, put in a caveat: "I'm headin' out jus' soon's I
c'n get breakfast."

"I, too, Bill. I'll be across the divide before you are."

Curiosity would not down: "What y' goin' t' town f'r?" he called.

Turning half around, Kate, with a little s