The Fighting Shepherdess

by Lockhart, Caroline

The incident filled Kate with a white fury that was like one of her old-time rages. Yet she was helpless to resent it. Her resentment would mean nothing to anybody, even if she had any way of showing it. It was quite useless at the moment for her to tell herself that Mrs. Toomey was only a pitiful inconsequential little coward, whose action was in keeping with her nature. She knew it to be true, yet she was stirred to her depths by the insult, and if anything more had been needed to keep her steadfast to her purpose, the incident would have accomplished it. Sensitive to the extent of morbidness—it was impossible for her to ignore the occurrence.

  Kate’s hands were trembling with the violence of her emotions as she tied a slip noose in a leather strap and secured the horses to the railing. She made a pretence of examining the harness in order to regain sufficient self-possession to transact her business in the bank with the impersonal coolness to which she had schooled herself when it was necessary to enter that institution.

  Mr. Vernon Wentz at his near-mahogany desk was deep in thought when Kate passed him. He bowed absently and she responded in the same manner. It occurred to Mr. Wentz that a time when everyone else was either borrowing, or endeavoring to, she was one of the few customers whose balances appeared ample for their expenses.

  The banker’s attitude since his interview with Kate and her subsequent astonishing and unexpected payment of the mortgage had been one of polite aloofness. That matter was still a mystery which he hoped to solve sometime. But long ago Mr. Wentz had learned that the life of a banker is not the free independent life of a laundryman, and that with a competitor like Abram Pantin forever harassing him by getting the cream of the loans, it was sometimes necessary to make concessions and conciliations.

  As Kate was leaving, he arose and extended a hand over the railing.

  “We don’t see you often, Miss Prentice.”

  She showed no surprise at his action and extended her own hand without either alacrity or hesitancy as she replied briefly:

  “I seldom come to Prouty.”

  “I merely wished to say that if at any time we can accommodate you, do not hesitate to ask us.” Mr. Wentz realized that he was laying himself open to an embarrassing reminder, and expected it, but Kate did not betray by so much as the flicker of an eyelid that she remembered when she had pleaded, not for money, but only for time to save herself from ruin.

  “You are very kind.” She bowed slightly.

  “You are one of our most valued customers.” Her reserve piqued him; it was a kind of challenge to his gallantry. “I hope—I trust you will allow us to show our appreciation in some way—if only a small favor.”

  “I don’t need it.”

  “You are very fortunate to be in that position, the way times are at present. In that case,” he smiled with the assurance of a man who had had his conquests, “I’ll presume to ask one. We should be pleased—delighted to handle your entire account for you. You keep it—”

  “In Omaha.”

  “Why not in Prouty?” ingratiatingly.

  Kate did not answer immediately, but while she returned the gaze of his melting brown eyes steadily she received a swift impression that for some reason deposits would be particularly welcome. There had been no eagerness or anxiety to suggest it, yet she had the notion strongly that the bank needed the money. Perhaps, she reasoned swiftly, the suspicion was born merely of her now habitual distrust of motives; nevertheless, it was there, to become a fixed opinion.

  While she seemed to deliberate, Mr. Wentz’s thoughts were of a different nature. If she were not so tanned and wore the clothes of civilization—she had the features, and, by George! she had a figure! These interesting mental comments were interrupted by a sudden dilation of Kate’s pupils as though from some sudden mental excitement. The gray iris grew luminous, he noticed, while her face was flooded with color, as though she had been startled.

  “I will consider it.”

  The answer was noncommittal, but the graceful sweeping gesture with which he stroked his mustache as she departed was one of satisfaction. Mr. Wentz had a notion that after looking at him for all these years the young woman had just really seen him.

  The banker returned to his desk, opened a drawer and extracted a small mirror, in which he regarded himself surreptitiously. What was it about him—what one thing in particular, he wondered, that was so compelling that even a woman like this Kate Prentice must relent at his first sign of interest? Was it his appearance or his personality?

  In the pleasing occupation of contemplating his own features and trying to answer these absorbing questions, Mr. Wentz forgot temporarily that Neifkins, in violation of the law governing such matters, was in debt to the bank beyond the amount of his holdings as director, and behind with his interest—a condition which had disturbed the president not a little because it was so fraught with unpleasant possibilities.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XVII

  EXTREMES MEET

  Kate raised herself on an elbow and looked out through the open window above her bunk where the first streak of dawn was showing. The soft air was redolent of things growing and the pungent odor of sagebrush. The bush birds were chirping furiously; all the soul-stirring magic of spring in the foothills was in its perfection; but it conveyed nothing to Kate save the fact that another day was beginning in which to get through the work she had outlined.

  She was like that now—practical, driving, sparing neither herself nor others—apparently without sentiment or any outside interest. Her sheep and that which pertained to them seemed to fill her whole horizon.

  The interior of the wagon alone was sufficient to disclose the change in Kate. As the growing light made the dim outlines clearer it brought out on the floor and side benches a promiscuous clutter that contained nothing suggesting a feminine occupant. There was no scrollwork in soap on the window now. On the contrary, the glass badly needed washing. No decorative advertisement, no bouquet above the mirror, or festal juniper thrust between the oak bows and the canvas. A pile of market reports and Sheep Growers’ Journals replaced the fashion magazines, while the shelves that had contained romances and histories were filled with books on wool-growing.

  The floor space and side benches were occupied by new horse shoes, a can of paint, sheep shears, a lard bucket filled with nails and staples, boxes of rifle ammunition, riding boots and arctics, a halter and a broken bridle.

  It all said plainly that the wagon represented only a place for sleep and shelter, yet, since she had no other, it was home to the sheep woman.

  Kate raised herself higher on her elbow and called sharply:

  “Bowers?”

  A sleepy response came from somewhere.

  “It’s daylight—hurry!”

  Bowers’s voice, plaintive but stronger, answered:

  “I’d be ten pounds heavier if it wasn’t for that word ‘hurry.’”

  Kate smiled faintly. Complaining and threatening to mutiny was to Bowers merely a form of recreation and Kate knew that nothing short of a charge of dynamite could blast Bowers loose from his beloved wagon. He spoke invariably of the ranch as “Our Outfit” and he could not have been more faithful if their interests had been identical, though he missed no occasion to declare that it robbed a man of his self-respect to work for a woman.

  The chief complaint of Kate’s herders was against her brusque imperious manner and her exactions, which took no account of their physical limitations. Fatigue, weather, long hours without food or sleep under trying conditions, were never excuses to satisfy her for the slightest neglect of duty, or any error of judgment which worked to her disadvantage. She seemed to regard them as human machines and they felt it. All save Bowers obeyed without liking her.

  “Headquarters” were still on the original homestead, but they had grown since they had consisted of Kate’s sheep wagon, Mormon Joe’s tepee and a ten-by-twelve cook tent. Now it looked like a canvas village when first seen through the willows, for there was a dining tent connected with the cook ten
t by a fly, and near it a commissary tent where were heaped supplies, saddles, harness and all that it was needful to keep under shelter, while around the tents was a semicircle of sheep wagons. There was a substantial horse corral, and across the creek the sheep-pens had tripled in size, with a row of well-built shearing-pens beside them. Under a long shed with a corrugated-iron roofing there were sacks of wool piled to a height which gave Kate a feeling of deep satisfaction each time she passed them.

  Everything showed thrift, economy, a practical intelligence and a Spartan disregard for personal comfort. The camp was as devoid of luxuries and superfluities as an Indian village. And on a hillside where the afternoon sun lay longest there was a sunken grave enclosed in wire. Here Mormon Joe was turning to dust, unavenged, forgotten nearly, by all save a handful.

  Kate felt that she had every reason to be satisfied with her progress and to congratulate herself upon the judgment she had displayed in continuing to raise sheep for their fleece when the price of wool was nil, practically, and every discouraged grower in the state, including the astute Neifkins, was putting in “black-faces” that were better for mutton. Now a protective administration was advancing the price of wool, and when she sold she would have her reward for her courage. She had been the first to import a few of the coarser wool sheep from Canada and the experiment had proved that they were especially adapted to the rocky mountainous range of that section. The Rambouillets she purchased had kept fat where the merinos had lost weight on the same feed. The ewes had sheared on an average of close to twelve pounds and the bucks more than fifteen, a few as high as twenty-five. And now she wanted more of them.

  Thus circumstances seemed to have diverted her tastes into new channels entirely. As she had once yearned for clothes, and companionship, and happiness, she now with the same intensity wanted sheep, and more sheep, and better sheep. Little by little, too, and unobtrusively, she was acquiring script land, lieu land, long-time leases, patented homesteads, and the water holes which controlled ranges. To do all this meant the elimination of every unnecessary expenditure and she denied herself cheerfully, wearing clothes that were no better than her herders', shabby sometimes to grotesqueness.

  The coming autumn she would have old ewes and wether lambs to ship sufficient to cover her expenses, while the sale of her wool at present prices would enable her to grade up her herds to a point that would be approximately where she would have them. She had seen too many hard winters and short ranges ever again to be over-sanguine, but she knew that unless some unprecedented loss came to her she was well on the way to the fulfillment of her ambition. A few good years and the “Sheep Queen of Bitter Creek” would no longer be a title of derision. But these thoughts were her secrets and she had no confidants. Bowers was the nearest approach to one, but even he knew nothing of the incentive which made her seemingly tireless herself and possessed of a driving energy that made all who worked for her fully earn their wages.

  Bowers was preparing breakfast by lamplight when Kate clanged the triangle of iron to awaken two herders asleep in their “tarps” under the willows. They crawled out in the clothes in which they had slept, dishevelled and grumbling.

  They breakfasted by lamplight, seated on benches on either side of the long table improvised from boards and cross-pieces of two-by-fours. There was no tablecloth and the dishes were of agate-ware as formerly. Kate ate hurriedly and in silence, but the usual airy persiflage went on between Bowers and the herders.

  “It near froze ice this mornin’,” Bowers observed by way of making conversation. “I was so cold that I had to shiver myself into a pressperation before I could get breakfast.”

  “I slept chilly all night,” said Bunch, and added, looking askance at his erstwhile bed-fellow, “They ain’t no more heat in Oleson than a rattler.”

  “Looks like you’d steal yurself a blanket somewhur,” Bowers commented.

  “I wouldn’t a slept the fore part of last night anyhow,” Bunch said pointedly.

  “I hope I didn’t keep you awake with my singin’?” Bowers’s voice expressed a world of solicitude.

  “Was that you makin’ that comical noise?” Bunch elevated his brows in astonishment. “I thought one of the horses was down, and chokin’.”

  Bowers slammed a pyramid of pancakes upon the table.

  “Why don’t you take a shovel, Bunch?” he demanded. “You’re losin’ time eatin’ with your knife and fingers.”

  “These sweat-pads of yourn would be pretty fair if 'twant fur the lumps of sody a feller’s allus bitin’ into,” the herder commented.

  “Maybe you’d ruther do the cookin’ so you kin git ’em to suit you,” Bowers retorted, nettled.

  “Oh, I ain’t kickin’—I lived with Injuns a year and I kin eat anything.”

  “You got manners like a pet 'coon,” Bowers eyed the herder with disfavor as that person shoved a cake into his mouth with one hand and reached for the molasses jug with the other.

  Kate paid no attention to this amiable exchange of personalities, for while she ate with the men she seldom took part in the conversation. Now she said, rising:

  “Stack the dishes, Bowers, and come over and help us.”

  “Yes, Bowers,” Bunch mocked when Kate was well out of hearing, “come over and run down fifty or sixty sheep and wrastle a few three-hundred poun' bucks and drag around several wool sacks and halter-break that two-year-ol' colt while you’re restin’.”

  Bowers resented instantly any criticism of Kate by her herders. But he himself saw and regretted the change in her. Occasionally he wished that he dared remind her of the old adage that “Molasses catches more flies than vinegar,” for there were times when she made difficulties for herself by her brusqueness, antagonizing where it would have been as easy to engender a feeling of friendliness. She was more interesting, perhaps, but less lovable, and this Bowers felt vaguely.

  The work that morning went slowly. Bunch and Oleson moved with exasperating deliberation and made stupid blunders. The brunt of the labor fell upon Bowers and Kate, who soon were grimy with dust and perspiration. As the sun rose higher, so did Kate’s temper, and her voice grew sharper and more imperious each time she spoke to the shirkers. The fact that the present task was necessary, because of carelessness on their part, did not tend to increase her tolerance. Bunch, herding a band of yearlings, had allowed them to get back to their mothers. To allow a “mix” was one of the supreme offenses and the herders knew that only necessity ever made Kate overlook it. If new men had been available, both Bunch and Oleson would have received their time checks quickly.

  Kate had been at the “dodge gate” until she was dizzy. Her eyes ached with the strain of watching the chute and her arm ached with the strain of slamming the gate to-and-fro, which cut them into their proper divisions. The last sheep was through finally, but not until the sun was high and the heat made exertion an effort.

  “There are some yearlings in there that belong in the 'bum bunch,' and six or eight with wrong earmarks. We’ll have to catch them.” Kate set the example by walking in among them, and immediately a cloud of dust arose as the frightened sheep ran bleating in a circle. Above the din Kate’s voice rose sharp and imperative as her trained eye singled out the sheep she wanted.

  “There, Oleson, that one! Bowers, catch that lame one! Hold that sheep with the sore mouth, Bunch, till I look at it.”

  The sheep dodged and piled up in one end of the corral to the point of suffocation, then around and around in a dizzy circle, with Kate and the herders each intent on the particular sheep he was bent on catching.

  In the midst of it a laugh, feminine, musical, amused, rang out above the turmoil. Kate looked up quickly. Her swift glance showed her the figure of a man and a girl leaning over the gate at the far end of that division.

  She frowned slightly.

  “Bunch,” curtly, “tell those people to stand back.”

  Bunch waved his hand and yelled bluntly:

  “Git back furderer!”
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  Again the light feminine laugh reached Kate and her lips tightened as she thought cynically:

  “Dudes from the Scissor Ranch over to look at the freak woman sheepherder.”

  Disston winced a little. Kate might misunderstand and take offense at Beth Rathburn’s laughter.

  But Kate ignored, then forgot them, until Bowers, working at that end of the corral, came back and jerked his thumb over his shoulder:

  “That feller wants to speak to you.”

  Kate looked up impatiently, hesitated, wiped her face on the sleeve of her forearm and walked over without great alacrity.

  As she went forward Kate looked only at the girl, who, cool and dainty in her sheer white muslin, her fair face reflecting the glow from the pink silk lining of her parasol, small of stature and as exquisitely feminine as a Dresden china shepherdess, was her direct antithesis.

  Kate’s divided skirt was bedraggled, a rent showed in the sleeve of her blouse, her riding boots were shabby, and the fingers were out of her worn gauntlets. Her hat was white with the dust of the corral, her hair dishevelled and her face, still damp with perspiration, was grimy. But somehow she managed to be picturesque and striking. Her clothes could not hide the long beautiful curves of her tall figure and she carried herself very erect, with something dignified and authoritative in her manner, while her wide free gestures were the movements of independence and self-reliance.

  Disston looking at her eagerly and intently as she came closer noted that the changes the years had made were chiefly in her expression. The friendly candor of her eyes was replaced by a look that was coldly speculative, and her lips that had smiled so readily now expressed determination. Her whole bearing was indicative of concentration, singleness of purpose and patience or, more strictly, a dogged endurance. These things Disston saw in his swift scrutiny before she recognized him.

  She stopped abruptly, her eyes widened and her lips parted in astonishment.

  “Hughie!” She went forward swiftly, her eyes shining with the glad welcome he remembered and all her old-time impetuosity of manner. Then she checked herself as suddenly. She did not withdraw the hand she had extended, but the smile froze on her lips and all the warmth went out of her greeting. She added formally, “I wasn’t expecting to see any one I knew—you surprised me.”