The Fighting Shepherdess

⛶
The Fighting Shepherdess, by Caroline

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Title: The Fighting Shepherdess
Author: Caroline Lockhart

Release Date: November 3, 2007 [eBook #23296]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE FIGHTING SHEPHERDESS
by
CAROLINE LOCKHART
With Frontispiece by M. Leone Bracker

[Illustration: Kate was sitting on a rock--a dark picturesque silhouette against the sky. See page 235.]

A. L. Burt Company Publishers New York Published by arrangement with Small, Maynard & Company
Copyright, 1919, By Small, Maynard & Company (Incorporated)
Second Printing, February, 1919 Third Printing, March, 1919 Fourth Printing, March, 1919 Fifth Printing, May, 1919 Sixth Printing, June, 1919

CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I The Sand Coulee Roadhouse 1 II An Historic Occasion 13 III Prouty 28 IV Disillusionment 40 V For Always 52 VI The Wolf Scratches 58 VII The Blood of Jezebel 75 VIII The Man of Mystery 85 IX The Summons 98 X The Bank Puts on the Screws 109 XI Kate Keeps Her Promise 120 XII The Dude Wrangler 131 XIII Mrs. Toomey's Friendship Is Tested 139 XIV Like Any Other Herder 156 XV One More Whirl 165 XVI Straws 175 XVII Extremes Meet 189 XVIII A Warning 207 XIX An Old, Old Friend 212 XX The Fork of the Road 228 XXI "Heart and Hand" 253 XXII Mullendore Wins 263 XXIII When the Black Spot Hit 274 XXIV Toomey Goes into Something 283 XXV The Chinook 298 XXVI Taking Her Medicine 309 XXVII The Sheep Queen 322 XXVIII The Surprise of Mr. Wentz's Life 333 XXIX Toomey Distinguishes Himself 344 XXX Her Day 353

THE FIGHTING SHEPHERDESS
CHAPTER I
THE SAND COULEE ROADHOUSE
A heavily laden freight wagon, piled high with ranch supplies, stood in the dooryard before a long loghouse. The yard was fenced with crooked cottonwood poles so that it served also as a corral, around which the leaders of the freight team wandered, stripped of their harness, looking for a place to roll.
A woman stood on tip-toe gritting her teeth in exasperation as she tugged at the check-rein on the big wheelhorse, which stuck obstinately in the ring. When she loosened it finally, she stooped and looked under the horse's neck at the girl of fourteen or thereabouts, who was unharnessing the horse on the other side. "Good God, Kate," exclaimed the woman irritably; "how many times must I tell you to unhook the traces before you do up the lines? One of these days you'll have the damnedest runaway in seven states."
The girl, whose thoughts obviously were not on what she was doing, obeyed immediately, and without replying looped up the heavy traces, throwing and tying the lines over the hames with experienced hands.
The resemblance between mother and daughter was so slight that it might be said not to exist at all. It was clear that Kate's wide, thoughtful eyes, generous mouth and softly curving but firm chin came from the other side, as did her height. Already she was half a head taller than the short, wiry, tough-fibered woman with the small hard features who was known throughout the southern half of Wyoming as "Jezebel of the Sand Coulee."
A long flat braid of fair hair swung below the girl's waist and on her cheeks a warm red showed through the golden tan. Her slim straight figure was eloquent of suppleness and strength and her movements, quick, purposeful, showed decision and activity of mind. They were as characteristic as her directness of speech.
The Sand Coulee Roadhouse was a notorious place. The woman who kept it called herself Isabel Bain--Bain having been the name of one of the numerous husbands from whom she had separated to remarry in another state, without the formality of a divorce. She was noted not only for her remarkable horsemanship, but for her exceptional handiness with a rope and branding iron, and her inability to distinguish her neighbors' livestock from her own.
"Pete Mullendore's gettin' in." There was a frown on Kate's face as she spoke and uneasiness in the glance she sent toward the string of pack-horses filing along the fence.
The woman said warningly, "Don't you pull off any of your tantrums--you treat him right."
"I'll treat him right," hotly, "as long as he behaves himself. Mother," with entreaty in her voice, "won't you settle him if he gets fresh?"
Jezebel only laughed and as the gate of the corral scraped when Mullendore