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The tracker took the slender trail, followed the wounded rustler to the creek bottom and thence down the creek to its junction with the North Fork. There they lost the trail in a pool of water, nor could they pick it up again. A mile below the fork of the Turkey stood Jim Laramie's cabin.

On these slender hopes he covered Stone, as the ex-rustler jumped his rifle to his check, and cried to him to pitch up. Stone's answer was a bullet. His shot echoed Laramie's, and as Laramie whipped the hat from his enemy's head, his bullet tore through the right side of Laramie's belt.

Bare-headed, and thirsty to close on his antagonist, Stone, jumping from Laramie's second bullet, ran forward, hugging the creek wall, dropped on one knee, fired, and ran in again. Laramie refused to be tempted from the shadow in which he stood, until Stone, rounding the wall again as he came on, firing, threatened to find partial cover should Laramie stand still.

They followed this for some distance, keeping two men ahead as they had done in the early morning. These two men, reaching the bench, which at that point had been cut sharply away by a flood, halted. The main party riding up the hill debouched on level ground at the crest and joined their scouts. Half a mile to their right stood Laramie's cabin.

Thereafter they conversed in too low a tone for Duane to hear, and presently Laramie's visitor left. Duane went inside, and, making himself agreeable, began to ask casual questions about Fairdale. Laramie was not communicative. Duane went to his room in a thoughtful frame of mind. Had Laramie's visitor meant he hoped some one had come to kill Longstreth?

Laramie's response was merely to the point: "He's not here." "Has he been here?" demanded Van Horn. "Yes," answered Laramie. Lefever at intervals looked virtuously from questioner to questioned. "How long ago, Jim?" continued Van Horn. Laramie regarded him steadily: "Several times in the last few weeks." "Was he here yesterday?" asked Van Horn suddenly. "I was on the Reservation yesterday."

Hawk, reining his horse hastily about, got him back up the shelving ford, spurred down the bank to where Kate, despite Laramie's efforts, was being driven by the sweep of the water and sprang from his horse. Where Kate's horse struggled at that moment the creek bank rose vertically above the peak of the flood. Deep water gave the horse no chance for a foothold and it swam helplessly.

Laramie's expression may have been skeptical; at all events John pointed a corroborating finger at him: "You don't believe it! Just the same," he added, moodily, "it's straight." "What's de Spain doing, John?" The tone of the answer bordered on the morose: "Running a nursery at Medicine Bend." "Trees?" "Trees!" John snortingly invoked the hottest place he could think of. "Trees? Babies!

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."

It was a bluff, but for a few minutes I had him and Van Horn guessing. They said they'd go home when they got Hawk. Lefever is staying up there for a day or two." "What did they do after that?" demanded Belle, referring to the men whose names were on everybody's tongues. "Beat the bushes from Laramie's to the Reservation," answered Sawdy.