As she flitted between his room and the kitchen he looked at her out of amazed eyes. Measuring her by her one-time frivolous and coquettish actions, the new Kate was rather astonishing. Man-like, Loudon began to suspect some trap. The lady was too good to be true.
"Bet she's tollin' me on," he told himself. "I'll ask her again, an' then pop'll go the weasel. No, sirree, I know when I'm well off. As a friend, so long as she acts thisaway, she's ace-high, but I'll bet after marriage she'd develop tempers an' things like that Sue Shimmers girl Scotty told me about. Shore she would. Not a doubt of it. Yessir, single cussedness for Tom Loudon from now on henceforward. I'll gamble an' go the limit, it's got double blessedness backed clean off the table."
Lying in bed was not doing Tom Loudon a bit of good. He was fast becoming priggishly cynical. Which attitude of mind may have been natural, but was certainly abominably ungallant.
Long after the others in the house were asleep Loudon lay awake. His brain was busy fashioning plans for the undoing of the 88 outfit. It suddenly struck him that the guileful O'Leary undoubtedly wrote letters. A knowledge of the addresses on those letters was of paramount importance. It would wonderfully simplify matters.
The storekeeper, Ragsdale, was the Bend postmaster. Loudon knew that Ragsdale was not given to idle chatter. He resolved to take Ragsdale into his confidence.
In the morning after breakfast, Kate, first making sure that Mrs. Mace and Dorothy were out of earshot, stooped over the bed.
"Tom," she said, "don't you think I'd better find out whether O'Leary writes any letters and, if he does, to whom he writes them?"
Loudon stared at her in astonishment.
"Huh—how did yuh think o' that?" he blurted out.
"I don't know. It came to me last night. It's a good idea, don't you think?"