A panic seized her. Her heart beat like the roll of a drum and then nearly stopped. What might happen now? she asked herself. And what could she fear but the worst? In the dead of night--marooned in a wild country, with only a queer woman and two strange men. Could it be a plot? she asked herself. In the fear that gripped her she could hardly breathe, and to think was only to invite added agonies of apprehension. She sat quickly up, breathing hurriedly now and her heart racing. Then she heard the even breathing of her companion on the seat ahead. To make sure it was she, Kate put her hand over and touched Belle's shoulder. Reassured a little, but ready to push aside the curtain and spring from the stage at the least alarm, Kate listened painfully; the voices reached her ears again. One was Bradley's--of that she felt sure; the other, deeper, more full, and with a curiously even carrying quality through the silent night, she knew she had never heard before; but the darkness, the solitude, the shock of strange surroundings, if nothing else, made it terrifying to her. Kate had never been reckoned a timid girl, but she listened dumb with fear. Bradley did most of the talking. 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." "The ford is your only chance to get her over." "Can I make it?" "You've got good horses; you ought to make it by daylight." "Hear they got a new foreman over at Doubleday's," Bradley said. There was no comment, unless the silence could be so construed. "Tom Stone," added Bradley, as if bound to finish. There was an instant and angry exclamation, none the less ferocious because of the restrained feeling in its sudden utterance. "Doubleday sets a good deal by what Van Horn says; I reckon he put him in there," suggested Bradley. There was a further silence. Then she heard the stranger dryly say: "I expect so." It seemed as if behind everything he did say there was so much left unsaid. "I never got rightly, Jim," Bradley went on, "how you 'n' Van Horn's related." "I hope you never will," returned the man saluted as "Jim," in the same low, cold tone. "We're not related. He was my partner--once." "Stone will change things at the ranch." "He can't hurt them much." "I guess they're full bad," said Bradley, and then, lowering his voice: "The gal's asleep there in the stage. How'd the land contest they made on y' at Medicine Bend come off?" "The cattlemen own that Land Office. I'll beat the bunch at Washington." "Doubleday wanted me to go down to swear. I wouldn't do it--wasn't even at the trial----" "No honest man was, from Doubleday's."