The Fighting Shepherdess | Page 5

air. This time he sat up with a start.
"It's only me--Katie Prentice, from the Roadhouse. Don't be scart."
The wail was closer. There was no mistake. Then the dog barked. The man threw back the blanket and sprang to his feet. It took only a moment to get into his clothes and step out into a night that had turned pitch dark.
"Where are you?" he called.
"Oh, Mister!?" The shrill cry held gladness and relief.
Then she came out of the blackness, the ends of a white nubia and a little shoulder cape snapping in the wind, her breath coming short in a sound that was a mixture of exhaustion and sobs.
"I was afraid I couldn't find you till daylight. I heard a bell, but I didn't know where to go, it's such a dark night. I ran all the way, nearly, till I played out."
"What's the row?" he asked gently.
She slipped both arms through one of his and hugged it convulsively, while in a kind of hysteria she begged:
"Don't send me back, Mister! I won't go! I'll kill myself first. Take me with you--please, please let me go with you!"
"Tell me what it's all about."
She did not answer, and he urged:
"Go on. Don't be afraid. You can tell me anything."
She replied in a strained voice:
"Pete Mullendore, he--"
A gust of wind blew the shoulder cape back and he saw her bare arm with the sleeve of her dress hanging by a shred.
"--he did this?"
"Yes. He--insulted--me--I--can't--tell--you--what--he--said."
"And then?"
"I scratched him and bit him. I fought him all over the place. He was chokin' me. I got to a quirt and struck him on the head--with the handle. It was loaded. He dropped like he was dead. I ran to my room and clum out the window--"
"Your mother--"
"She--laughed."
"God!" He stooped and picked up the little bundle she had dropped at her feet. "Come along, Partner. You are going into the sheep business with 'Mormon Joe.'"
CHAPTER II
AN HISTORIC OCCASION
The experienced ear of Major Stephen Douglas Prouty told him that he was getting a hot axle. The hard dry squeak from the rear wheel of the "democrat" had but one meaning--he had forgotten to grease it. This would seem an inexcusable oversight in a man who expected to make forty miles before sunset, but in this instance there was an extenuating circumstance. Immediately after breakfast there had been a certain look in his hostess's eye which had warned him that if he lingered he would be asked to assist with the churning. Upon observing it he had started for the barn to harness with a celerity that approached a trot.
Long years of riding the grub-line had developed in the Major a gift for recognizing the exact psychological moment when he had worn out his welcome as company and was about to be treated as one of the family and sicced on the woodpile, that was like a sixth sense. It seldom failed him, but in the rare instances when it had, he had bought his freedom with a couple of boxes of White Badger Salve--unfailing for cuts, burns, scalds and all irritations of the skin--good also, as it proved, for dry axles, since he had neglected to replenish his box of axle grease from that of his host at the last stopping place.
He leaned from under the edge of the large cotton umbrella which shaded him amply, and squinted at the sun. He judged that it was noon exactly. His intention seemed to be communicated to his horses by telepathy, for they both stopped with a suddenness which made him lurch forward.
"It's time to eat, anyhow," he said aloud as he recovered his balance with the aid of the dashboard, disentangled his feet from the long skirts of his linen duster and sprang over the wheel with the alacrity of a man who took a keen interest in food.
Unhooking the traces, he led the team to one side of the road, slipped off the bridles and replaced them with nose bags containing each horse's allotment of oats--extracted from the bin of his most recent host. Then he searched in the bottom of the wagon until he found a monkey-wrench which he applied to the nut and twirled dextrously. Canting the wheel, he moistened his finger tip and touched the exposed axle.
"Red hot!"
He left it to cool and reached under the seat for a pasteboard shoe-box and bore it to the side of the road, where he saw a convenient rock. Both the eagerness of hunger and curiosity was depicted on his face as he untied the twine which secured it. He was wondering if she had put in any cheese. The Major especially liked cheese and had not failed to mention the fact when his hostess had let drop the information that a whole one had come in