Mullendore?"

"Goin' to take you back to the mountings next trip--learn you to tan
hides good--with ashes and deer brains--all--same--squaw--make good
squaw out o' you--Katie--break your spirit first--you brat--lick you
till I break your heart."

Katie's hands clenched.

"My mother wouldn't let me go with you!"

A shadowy cunning crossed his face.

"You'll go, when I say so. I got the whip-hand o' Jezebel."

"You're bragging, Pete Mullendore. My mother's not afraid of you."

"Jest a line on a postal--ud bring the Old Man on a special. You're more
afraid of the Old Man than you are of dyin'--ain't it the truth,
Isabelle?" he mumbled.

"You're only talking to hear yourself--you wouldn't know where to write.
You've forgotten the name of the town where the 'Old Man' lives. You
can't remember at all, can you, Pete?"

A frown lined his forehead while she waited with parted lips, afraid to
move lest she start him rambling elsewhere again.

"You couldn't say the name of the town where Katie Prentice's father
lives!"

Bending over him, rigid, tense, it seemed as though she would draw the
answer from him through sheer will power.

He rolled his head fretfully to and fro, looking into her eyes with
dilated pupils that burned in yellow bloodshot eyeballs. The wind
rattled loose wagon bolts and scattered the ashes on the hearth in a
puff, while Kate with a thumping heart waited for a response.

"_Think!_" she urged. "Say it out loud, Mullendore--the name of the town
you'd put on the postal if you were going to write to the 'Old Man.'"

His lips moved to speak, and then somewhat as if the habit of secrecy
asserted itself even in his delirium, he checked himself with an
expression of obstinacy on his face.

Kate's hand crept to his shoulder and clutched it tight.

"Tell me, Pete!" She shook him hard. "Say it--quick!"

He muttered thickly:

"What for?"

"You're a liar, Pete Mullendore!" she taunted. "You don't know. You
haven't any idea where Katie Prentice's father lives!"

The gibe brought no response; yet slowly, so gradually that it was not
possible to tell when it began, a look that was wholly rational came
into his eyes. He blinked, touched his dry lips with his dry tongue and,
turning his head, recognized her without surprise.

"Git me a drink."

She held a dipper to his lips.

He fixed his eyes upon her face.

"I been sick?"

"Spotted fever."

He stirred slightly.

"What's this?" A weak ast