ofa like a deer, looking still at him with wide-open eyes and then
glancing apprehensively toward the door.

Laramie sat laughing silently at her get-away as he called it, yet he
was not undisturbed.

Nothing, in the circumstances, could have been less welcome than any
sort of an intrusion. But a knock at the door, almost violent, and
coming three times, stirred even Laramie's temper.

The door was not locked. Laramie rose, his fingers resting on the butt
of his revolver, and stepping lightly into the dining-room, turned down
the lamp. He stood in the shadow and beckoned Kate to him. His face
indicated no alarm.

"This may be something, or it may be nothing. You step into the
kitchen. I'll go to the door."

She clung to him, really terror-stricken, begging him not to go. As he
tried to quiet her fears the heavy knock shook the flimsy door the
second time. Kate, declaring she would go, would not be denied.
Laramie told her exactly what to do.

She reached the door on tiptoe and stood to the right of it. The key
was in the lock. Kate, reaching out one hand, turned the key. With
the door thus locked and standing close against the wall she called out
to know who was there. Laramie had followed behind her. He stepped to
where he could look from behind the window shade out on the porch. He
turned to Kate just as an answer came from outside, and signed to her
to open. Standing where she was, Kate turned the key swiftly back in
the lock and threw the door wide open.

Stooping slightly forward to bring his hat under the opening, and
looking carefully about him, her father walked heavily into the room.

Laramie had disappeared. Kate, dumb, stood still. Barb closed the
door behind him, walked to the table, put down his hat and turned to
Kate. "Well?" he began, snapping the word in his usual manner, his
stupefied daughter struggling with her astonishment. "You don't act
terrible glad to see me."

Kate caught her breath. "I was so surprised," she stammered.

"What are you staying in town so long for?" demanded Barb. His voice
had lost nothing of its husky heaviness.

She answered with a question: "Where else have I to stay, father? I've
been waiting for money to get East with and it hasn't come yet."

"What do you want to go East for?"

"I've nowhere else to go."

"Why don't you come home?"

"Because you told me to leave."

He sat slowly down on a chair near the table and with the care of a