She looked at him wistfully: "I don't want you to go, Jim," she whispered. Her hands lay on his free arm. "I don't want to go, Kate," he said. "But the boys have sent to me for help--what can I do? He's a hundred times more my enemy than theirs. The only interest they've got in rounding him up is friendship for me and you. Suppose they close with him and get killed?" Kate could only look up into his eyes: "Suppose you get killed, Jim?" He hesitated. Then he looked down into her own eyes: "You'd know I did what I ought to do, Kate." She withdrew herself from his embrace and looked at him: "I know you're going, Jim; only, don't ask me to say 'go.' I couldn't bear to think _I_ sent you." McAlpin had armed himself and was determined, despite Laramie's protests, to ride with him. The plucky boss was saddling the ponies and stood momentarily expecting Laramie at the barn when the telephone rang. Too occupied with his watch for Laramie to give it any heed, McAlpin let it ring. And the barn men let it ring. It rang, seemingly, more and more sharply until McAlpin, with an impatient exclamation, ordered a hostler to answer. "It's you, McAlpin," bawled the hostler from the office, "and they want you quick." McAlpin hurried to the instrument and glued his ear to the receiver. Tenison was on the wire. He spoke low and fast: "Is Laramie there?" "No." "Where is he?" "Couldn't tell you, Harry, I'm lookin' for him every minute." "Drop everything. Find him quick or you'll be too late. Van Horn's in town." McAlpin gasped and swallowed: "What d' y' mean, Harry?" "Damnation!" thundered Tenison. "You heard me, didn't you?" "I did." "Do as you're told." CHAPTER XLIII THE LAST CALL The canny Scot knew well what the message meant. With little ostentation and much celerity he hurried up street. Belle, at her, door with Kate, drawn-faced, could only say that Laramie had promised to come there before starting. "Warn him," was McAlpin's excited word. "You know Van Horn, Belle." Red-faced and heated, McAlpin ambled rapidly in and out of every place where he could imagine Laramie might be. Deathly afraid of running into Van Horn--who bore him, he well knew, no love--but doggedly bent on his errand, McAlpin asked fast questions and spread the rapid-fire news as he traveled. More than once he had word of Laramie, yet nowhere could he, in his exasperation, set eyes on him. How nearly he succeeded in his mission he never knew till he had failed. Laramie had completed his dispositions and was free, after a brief round of errands, to start north, when Carpy encountered him in the harness shop next to the drug store. Laramie was in haste. But Carpy insisted he must speak with him and, against protest, took him by way of the back door of the shop over to the back door of the drug store and into the little room behind the prescription case.