ng down at it was breaking it
nervously between her fingers. "You will have to hurry up and get well
if I stay," she said abruptly. "I'm beginning to think you are the
only friend I have here. And," she added, so quickly as to cut off any
words from him, "I've told you everything. I only hope my speaking
about the hiding place at the bridge when father was angry with me--and
only to defend myself--was not the cause of _this_."

She was close beside him. "Can it be," she asked, "that this was how
it happened?" He heard her voice break with the question.

"No," he blurted out instantly.

"Oh," she cried, "I'm so thankful!"

Listening to her effort to speak the words, he was not sorry for what
he had said. "If you're going to lie," Hawk had once said to him,
cynically, "don't stumble, don't beat about the bush--do a job!" The
moment Kate told her story, Laramie knew exactly how he had been
trapped. But why blame her? "It's the first time I ever lied to her,"
he thought ruefully to himself. "It's the first time she ever believed
me!"

"Does Belle know you quarreled with your father?" he asked, to get away
from the subject.

"No," she answered, steadying herself.

"She said you'd been acting sort of queer."

"I can't tell people my troubles."

"Why did you tell me?"

"You might die and blame me."

"Who says I'm going to die?"

"They were afraid you might."

"Well, I don't like to disappoint anybody, but dying is a thing a man
is entitled to take his time about."

"Can't I do something till the doctor comes?"

He turned very slowly on his side. Kate made an attempt to examine his
shoulder. She was not used to the sight of blood. The clotted and
matted clothing awed and sickened her. Even the hay was blood-soaked,
but she stuck to her efforts. Supplementing the rude efforts of
McAlpin and Kitchen to give him first aid, she cut away, with Laramie's
knife, the bullet-torn coat and shirt and tried to get the wound ready
for cleansing. "I'm so afraid of doing the wrong thing," she murmured,
fearfully.

"I don't care what you do--do something," he said. "Your hands feel
awful good."

"I've nothing here to work with."

"All right, we'll go to the drug store and get something." After
stubborn efforts he got on his feet and insisted on going down the
stairs. Nothing that Kate could say would dissuade him. "I've been
here long enough, anyway," was his decision. "I'm feeling better every
m