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Updated: May 3, 2025
He was recounting, with occasional profanity, the mishaps of his trip, beginning with the late train. "Any passengers?" Kate heard the stranger ask. "Two women c'n y' beat it? One of 'em a girl for Doubleday's." "What can a girl be wanting at Doubleday's?" "D'no. Came off the train tonight." "The Double-draw is out." "Jing!" exclaimed Bradley, "it was there an hour ago."
There's some good in most every man; but it doesn't always get a chance to work." Kate's anxiety was reflected in her manner. "If only," she exclaimed, "they haven't killed him today." The two had crossed the first divide. Below them lay the Crazy Woman, spanned by the Double-draw bridge. "His friends were his worst enemies," continued Laramie. "But they've got to get out of this country now.
There's two good trails from here to town and plenty of room on both. Today I'm riding the Double-draw bridge. If any of you are going to town, take the other trail. Lead off now, you two." He spoke to Van Horn and Stone, both mounted, and with the two headed for town, and the Texans started up the road, Laramie climbed into his own saddle. Not until then did he look around for Kate.
He rode this trail unmolested, crossed the divide and coming out of the hills could see, to the south, Sleepy Cat lying below. He made up his mind that his judgment was more nearly right than his apprehension, and rode down the slopes of the Crazy Woman, over the Double-draw bridge and up the south hill in good spirits. He had, in fact, got half-way up the long grade when he heard a rifle shot.
He did, however, approach the Double-draw bridge with an uncertainty and a caution not reflected in the pace which he rode toward it; but his horse was under close control and his rifle carefully in hand. Despite his misgivings, no enemy was sighted.
Kate was a little worried, but her companion sat quite unmoved, even when Bradley returned and reported the creek "roarin'." "That bein' the case," he muttered, "I'm thinkin' the Double-draw bridge has took up its timbers and walked likewise." The Double-draw bridge! How well Kate was to know that name; but that night it seemed, like everything else, only very queer.
Some instinct convinced her she was already a nuisance on the silent Bradley's hands. The ford off the main road was where he had purposed setting Kate over, as he expressed it, to the ranch. Double-draw bridge on the road to the fort and Reservation was two miles above. The horses climbed the long hill again and started on the road for the bridge.
He knew every inch of the ground. He knew how well his quarry had concealed himself to render surprise impossible. But Stone's very safety in this respect made his retreat more difficult. A man lying in wait under the Double-draw, staked practically everything on one chance: that the man he sought to kill should cross the bridge. It were then easy to pick him off from behind.
"If the Double-draw is out," sighed Belle resignedly, "I reckon we're trapped." For the first time now they could hear the hoofs of the two teams sinking into and pulling out of mud. It grew deeper as they descended the long grade toward the bridge and clouds obscured the light of the stars.
At points in his route where the main road could not well be avoided, he rode faster and with quickened circumspection. The Double-draw bridge he could not avoid without a long and difficult detour. Moreover, there, or beyond, he might expect to intercept the raiding party, and this was his business.
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