The Fighting Shepherdess | Page 5

that kid out of my thoughts!" Though he could not
have told why he did so, or what he might, even remotely, expect to
hear, he stood and listened intently before he stooped and disappeared
for the night between the flaps of the tent.
He turned often between the blankets of his hard bed, disturbed by
uneasy dreams quite unlike the deep oblivion of his usual sleep.
"Oh, Mister, where are you?"
The sheepherder stirred uneasily.
"Please--please, Mister, won't you speak?"
The plaintive pleading cry was tremulous and faint like the voice of a
disembodied spirit floating somewhere in the 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