AN: I owe each reader a personal thank you but due to a severe migraine, I am going to have to let this be my thank you this time and promise to do better next time. I appreciate you all.

Kitty stood at the bar going over her books. It might've been more comfortable in her office, but with Burke and Riser, along with the man she didn't know, still grumbling about the old man, she felt better be out in front, keeping an eye on things. Besides, with Sam taking a well-deserved, yet protested break, she really needed to be out there.

"Miss Kitty?"

Kitty looked up at Cindy, a short, sort of plump blonde with an infectious smile and big blue eyes. "Yeah?"

"I checked that old man out, like you asked." Cindy leaned in and kept her voice low. "I don't know what's wrong with him. He don't have no fever and he doesn't appear to be having no trouble breathing or nothing but he just won't wake up."

Kitty glanced over at the old man, lying on a pallet in the far corner of the room. She didn't know any more about dealing with something like this than Cindy did. If it had been a wound he was suffering from, she might've been able to help him, but not this. This was something for Doc.

"Uh, alright, Cindy. Thanks. We'll just leave him be for now and hope Doc makes it back to town before long."

"And if he don't?" Cindy cast an uneasy look in the three men's direction.

"I'll figure it out." Kitty sighed. "Look, don't worry about it. Why don't you go take a break or something? Nothing's going on right now and you deserve it."

"Alright, Miss Kitty." Cindy nodded gratefully and headed upstairs.

Kitty started to turn back for her books but was distracted when she saw Festus stand, grab his coat and begin to put it on. "Festus?" She called him over to her. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I'm a fixing on goin' out and seein' if'n I cain't find Matthew or ol' Doc." He answered. "Matthew most likely went after him and they ain't no tellin' what he's got his self up to. That there storm seems to be a blowing a little lighter now so's I figger it's time enough for me to go."

"Un huh." Kitty immediately shook her head at him. "Festus that storm hasn't abated since it started last night and the drifts are no telling how high. You go out there and you could be as lost to me as…" She stopped. She'd been purposely putting the thought of Matt and where he was and what could be happening to him out of her mind. She knew that if she'd dwelled on it, she wouldn't have been able to do what she needed to.

"He ain't lost to ya, Miss Kitty." Festus said softly. "He's most likely holed up somewhere like a big ol' coon jes a waitin' for the storm to quit. But I know he ain't lost."

"Yeah," she answered gruffly, avoiding meeting Festus' gaze. She knew he'd see how very worried she really was about that.

"Miss Kitty." Kitty looked up with a sigh when she saw Nathan Burke in front of her.

"What?" She offered him neither a smile nor encouragement. She was not too fond of Burke on her best days and this was not her best day.

"Uh, we uh… well, we've been talking…. I mean the men and I have been and we… well, we've come to demand that you put that old man in the back somewhere. It's just not safe for the rest of us to have him in here."

"You demand?" She arched a brow. "Just when did you get the right to demand anything of me in my own place?"

"Well…" Burke physically flinched when he saw Kitty's expression and the way Festus' head came up with a squint-eyed glare in his direction. "May… maybe, demand is too strong a word but…"

"No it's not." The man that had been huddled at the back with Burke and Riser, stood up and marched over to where they stood. "We have a right to demand that…"

"A right!?" Kitty angrily cut him off as her hands sought their home on her hips. "Just where do you come off with that? You have no rights at all in my place, Mister."

"Yes, I do." He declared, taking a threatening step forward.

Instantly, Festus moved in front of Kitty, his right hand curling into a fist. "Mister, I ain't got no idee who ya are, but yer a fixing on meeting my fist if'n ya take one more step."

"My name is Rucker." The man tried to stare Festus down, but quickly realized this scruffy hill man was not going to be easily backed down. "I'm an attorney from St. Louis on my way to Denver. I know the law and I know that as your customers we have…"

"You have nothing." Kitty moved out from behind Festus. "Since you've been in this place, you haven't laid one thin dime on that bar top and paid for any one of the meals you've been fed or the firewood we've been steadily putting in that stove to keep you warm or that bottle you took from behind the counter when you thought I wasn't looking. That means, you're not a customer; you're a freeloader. And freeloaders, Mister, are not entitled to any rights in my place."

"Why you little…" Rucker took one more step forward; which was all the reason Festus needed to punch the man before he could move more than an inch.

Before Kitty could blink, the two men were earnestly engaged in a fist fight that Riser and a couple of others looked interested in joining. Kitty turned and headed for the bar to get Sam's shotgun when a voice from behind her sounded.

"Hold it!"

TBC