The Fighting Shepherdess Part 14

THE BLOOD OF JEZEBEL

The prognostication made by the citizens of Prouty that it was "gettin'

ready for somethin'" seemed about to be verified out on the sheep range twenty miles distant, for at five o'clock one afternoon the wind stopped as suddenly as it had arisen and heavy snow clouds came out of the northeast with incredible swiftness.

Mormon Joe walked to the door of the cook tent and swept the darkening hills with anxious eyes. Kate should have been back long before this. He always had a dread of her horse falling on her and hurting her too badly to get back. That was about all there was to fear in summer time, but to-night there was the coming storm.

Kate's sense of direction was remarkable, but the most experienced plainsman would be apt to lose himself in these foothills, with the snow falling thick and the night so black he could not see his hand before his face.

Mormon Joe shook his head and turned back to his task of peeling potatoes. While he worked he reproached himself that he had not hunted those horses himself; but she had been so insistent upon going. She did not mind the wind, she had said, but then she did not "mind" anything, when it came to that. What would have been hardships for another were merely adventures to her.

At any rate, Kate was more comfortable now than she had been the year before. He smiled a little as he recalled her delight in the sheep wagon which he had given her to be her own quarters. He had had to borrow the money at the bank in addition to what he already had borrowed for running expenses, but his circ.u.mstances justified it. He was getting ahead, not with phenomenal rapidity, but satisfactorily. With the leases, and the land he owned, he was building the future upon a substantial foundation. A few years more of economy and attention to business and he could give Kate the advantages he wished. He listened, got up from the condensed-milk box upon which he sat and walked to the entrance of the tent once more. He strained his ears, but death itself was not more still than the opaque night.

Kate had left immediately after breakfast, and since the horses had only a few hours' start and would probably feed as they went, she had expected to be back by noon.

Kate was exceedingly resourceful--she knew what to do if caught out, he a.s.sured himself, unless she had been hurt. It was this thought that gave him a curious stillness at his heart. What would life be without her now? With the knife in his hand he stopped as he turned inside and stared at the potatoes on the box. He never had thought of that before--it left him aghast.

The girl had twined herself into every fiber of his nature from the time she had come to him as a child. She was identified with every hope.

Humph! He knew well enough what the answer would be if anything happened to Kate. He would shoot the chutes, again--quick. It was she who had awakened his ambition and kept him tolerably straight. Without her?

Humph!

He stoked the sheet-iron camp stove, put the potatoes to boil, cut chops enough for two and laid the table with the steel knives and forks and tin plates. Then he set out a tin of mola.s.ses and the sour-dough bread, after which there was nothing to do but wait for the potatoes to boil, and for Kate.

He was trying the potatoes with a fork when he raised his head sharply.

He was sure he heard the rattle of rocks. A faint whoop followed.

"Thank G.o.d!" He breathed the e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n fervently, yet he said merely as he stood in the entrance puffing his pipe as she rode up, "Got 'em, I see, Katie!"

"Sure. Don't I always get what I go after?" Then, with a tired laugh, "I'm disappointed; I thought you would be worried about me."

He smiled quizzically.

"I don't know why you'd think that."

"I'll know better next time," she replied good-humoredly, as she swung down with obvious weariness.

"There won't be any next time," he replied abruptly, "at least not at this season of the year."

"Oh, but I'm glad I went," she interposed hastily.

As Mormon Joe unwrapped the lead-rope from the saddle horn and took the horses away to picket, he wondered what wonderful adventure she would have to relate, for she seemed able to extract entertainment from nearly anything. By the time he returned she had removed her hat, gloves and spurs, washed her dust-streaked face, smoothed her hair, slipped on an enveloping ap.r.o.n over her riding clothes and had the chops frying.

The sight warmed his heart as he paused for a moment outside the circle of light which came through the entrance.

He had seen the same thing often before, but it never had impressed him particularly. Her presence in the canvas tent made the difference between home and a mere shelter. The small crumbs of bread he had cast upon the water were indeed coming back to him.

"I've ridden over forty miles since morning," she chattered, while he flung the snow flakes from his hat brim and brushed them from his shoulders. "The wind blew the horses' tracks out so I couldn't follow them. I never caught sight of them until just this side of Prouty. You can sit down, Uncle Joe--everything's ready."

They talked of the coming snowstorm, and the advisability of holding the sheep on the bed-ground if it should be a bad one; of the trip to town that he was contemplating; of the coyote that was bothering and the possibility of trapping him. There was no dearth of topics of mutual interest. Nevertheless, Mormon Joe knew that she was holding something in reserve and wondered at this reticence. It came finally when they had finished and still lingered at the table.

"Who do you suppose I met to-day when I was hunting horses?"

"Teeters?" Mormon Joe was tearing a leaf from his book of cigarette papers.

"Guess again."

He shook his head.

"Can't imagine."

She announced impressively:

"Mrs. Toomey!"

He was distributing tobacco from the sack upon the crease in the paper with exact.i.tude. He made no comment, so Kate said with increased emphasis:

"She was crying!"

Still he was silent, and she demanded:

"Aren't you surprised?"

She looked crestfallen, so he asked obligingly:

"Where did all of this happen?"

"In a draw a couple of miles this side of Prouty, where I found the horses. They had gone there to get out of the wind and it was by only a chance that I rode down into it.

"She was in the bottom, huddled against a rock, and didn't see me until I was nearly on her. I thought she was sick--she looked terrible."

"And was she?"

"No--she was worried."

"Naturally. Any woman would be who married Toomey."

"About money."

"Indeed." His tone and smile were ironic.

Kate, a trifle disconcerted, continued:

"He's had bad luck."

"He's had the best opportunities of any man who's come into the country."

"Anyway," she faltered, "they haven't a penny except when they sell something."