The Fighting Shepherdess Part 18

"Some drunk," he mumbled.

"He's hurt, I tell you! Hear him!"

"Drug store's open."

"Oughtn't you to go to him?"

"Lemme be--can't you?" He again breathed heavily.

The screams kept coming, but each a little fainter. Either the man was moving on or the pain was lessening. Mrs. Toomey's heart continued to thump as she lay rigid, listening. She wanted to get up and look through the window, but the floor was cold and she could not remember exactly where she had left her slippers. Anyway, somebody else would go to him.

It was a relief, though, when he stopped screaming.

Others whom the cries of agony awakened applied the same reasoning to the situation, with minor variations. "Tinhorn" in particular was disturbed because of their nearness. He raised his head from under a mound of blankets and frowned into the darkness as he wondered if, as Prouty's newly elected mayor, he would be criticized should he fail to go out and investigate. He was so warm and comfortable!

"Guess I'd better get up, Mamma."

His wife gripped him as if he was struggling violently, although his Honor was lying motionless as an alligator.

"You shan't--you'll get pneumonia and leave me and the children without any insurance! You've no right to take chances. Let somebody else go that hasn't any future."

There was that side to it.

"Some hobo most like." The future statesman turned over. "Tuck my back in, Mamma."

Mr. Sudds was awakened, and his first impulse was to rush to the man's a.s.sistance, but he was not sure where to find matches, and it took him such an unconscionable time to dress that by the time he got there--

Scales was restrained by the arms of his fragile wife who threatened hysterics if he left her. Between love and duty Mr. Scales did not hesitate with the thermometer at forty below zero, and the knowledge that loss of sleep unfitted him for business.

So Mormon Joe, screaming in his agony, staggered up the alley, leaving a crimson trail behind him, the sheep dog following like a shadow. He had nearly reached Main Street when he lurched, groped for a support, then fell to his knees. The hot drops turned to red globules in the snow as he kept crawling, gasping, "Oh, G.o.d! Won't somebody come to me?" The dog walked beside him as he dragged himself along, perplexed and wondering at this whim of his master's.

Mormon Joe was leaning against the side of the White Hand Laundry, his head fallen forward, when Bowers and the drug clerk got to him. The collie was licking his face for attention, but the warm caressing hand--now red and sticky--was lying in the snow, limp and unresponsive.

Mormon Joe had "gone over"--dying as he had lived--a man of mystery.

CHAPTER IX

THE SUMMONS

Bowers had offered to take Lingle, the Deputy Sheriff, to the sheep camp, which he was sure he could find easily from the directions Mormon Joe had given him when he hired him, but, as it proved, the herder had been over-sanguine.

They were hungry and tired from long hours in the saddle, and the breath frozen on their upturned collars testified to the continued extremity of the weather when for the hundredth time they checked their horses and tried to get their bearings.

"I'm certain sure that Mormon Joe said to ride abreast that peak and about a half mile to the left of it turn in to a 'draw' runnin'

northeast by southwest, and ride until I come acrost the wagon."

"Don't see how a child could miss the way from that description,"

replied Lingle, sarcastically.

"I think I see a woolie movin'." Bowers squinted across the white expanse and the deputy endeavored to follow his gaze, but could see nothing but dancing specks due to a mild case of snow blindness.

"Yep--that's a woolie. I'm so used to 'em I kin tell what a sheep is thinkin' from here to them mountains."

Reining their horses at the top of a "draw" a quarter of an hour later they looked down upon the sheep wagon in a clearing in the sagebrush, together with the tepee and cook tent. Urging their horses down the steep side they dismounted and went inside the latter, where soiled breakfast dishes sat on the unplaned boards which served as a table. In the way of food there was only a can of mola.s.ses and a half dozen biscuits frozen solid.

"Real cozy and homelike," Lingle commented, as he tried to pour himself some cold coffee and found it frozen. "I'll look around a bit and then go up and tell her."

"I'd ruther it ud be you than me," Bowers observed grimly. "Can't abide hearin' a female take on and beller. I don't like the sect, noway. You kin bet I don't aim to stay no longer than she kin git another herder, neither."

But Lingle was already out of hearing of the querulous voice of the misogynist, and peering into the tepee which was as Mormon Joe had left it he noted that it contained an unmade bed, and extra pair of shoes, and a few articles of wearing apparel--that was all.

The door of the sheep wagon was unlocked, yet he hesitated a moment before opening it. Its examination was in line with his duty, however, so he opened it and looked about with a certain amount of curiosity. The bare, cold stillness of it went to his marrow.

There was something pathetic to him in the pitiful attempts at home making shown in the few crude decorations. A feminine instinct for domesticity evidenced itself in the imitation of the scalloped border of a lace curtain made in soap on the gla.s.s of the small window in the back of the wagon, in a pin cushion of coa.r.s.e muslin worked in blue worsted yarn, in the bouquet of dried goldenrod in a bottle, in the highly colored picture of an ammunition company's advertis.e.m.e.nt pinned to the canvas wall. A snag of a comb and a brush were thrust in a wooden strip near the small cheap mirror.

Above the bunk two loops of wire were suspended from an oak bow of the wagon top, which obviously was where the occupant kept her rifle. There was a tiny stove by the door and a cupboard beside it, the shelves of which were crowded with books whose t.i.tles made the sheriff's eyes open.

A Latin grammar, a Roman history, the "Story of the French Revolution,"

mythology, and many others that might as well have been Greek for all the meaning their t.i.tles conveyed to the deputy.

"Whew!" he whistled softly. He had no idea that Mormon Joe's Kate had any education. He had the impression that she was, in his own phraseology, "a tough customer." Mormon Joe must have taught her, he reflected. There never was any doubt about his learning when it suited him to display it. The discovery increased the sheriff's curiosity to see the girl.

Continuing his investigations, he opened one of the drawers that pulled out from beneath the bunk, and closed it hastily--but not too soon to see that the undergarments it contained were made of flour sacks which had been ripped, laundered and fashioned clumsily by a hand unused to sewing. In the drawer on the other side there were clippings giving recipes for improving the complexion, hair treatments, care of the teeth and nails, and other aids to beauty.

Lingle smiled as he glanced at them. Evidently she had traits that were distinctly feminine. In addition, there were writing materials and a packet of letters addressed in a masculine hand that looked unformed and youthful. They were tied with a pink ribbon, and had the appearance of having been read frequently. Lingle fingered the packet uncertainly and then threw it back in the drawer impatiently.

"Thunder!" he muttered, "I ain't paid to snoop through a woman's letters."

On the southern slope of a foothill where the snow lay less deep than on the northern and eastern exposures, Kate stood on the sunny side of a brown boulder leaning her shoulder against it as she watched the sheep below her nibbling at the spears of dried bunch gra.s.s which thrust themselves above the surface. Her rifle stood against a rock where she could reach it easily, and her horse fed near her, pawing through the snow, like an experienced "rustler."

She was dressed to meet the weather in boys' boots and arctics, woolen mittens, riding skirt of heavy blue denim, the fleece-lined canvas coat of the sheepherder, and a c.o.o.nskin cap with ear-laps. Her face wore an expression that was both sad and troubled as she mechanically watched such sheep as showed a disposition to stray, and kept an eye out for coyotes.

Save in her sleep, her quarrel with Mormon Joe had not been out of her mind since, three days before, she had stood shivering at the door and watched him vanish through the sagebrush. Now, in addition, she was worried over his absence. She had kept supper waiting until long after her usual bedtime and to-day she had worn a trail to the top of the hill, watching, and still had seen no sign of him. Poignant regret for what she had said and shame for her ingrat.i.tude overwhelmed her. Along with the feelings was a fear lest he refuse to forgive her and insist upon her leaving. Then, too, there was her promise to Mrs. Toomey.

Kate was confronted with her first problem. She had threshed it out, turned it over and over, finally arriving at the conclusion that she must keep her promise at any cost to herself. A promise was a promise, and she had given her hand on it. Her regard for her word was a dominant trait in Kate. Mormon Joe had fostered this ideal by words and his own example. So she had slowly made up her mind that having given her word she would not recall it, though it would be a high price to pay for a principle if it cost her his friendship and protection.

Kate intended to plead with him; to beg his forgiveness upon her knees, if necessary; to put her arms about his neck and make him understand how much she loved him. She had taken everything for granted heretofore, as her right because he had given it so readily, but all would be different if only he would forget what she had said and give her another opportunity, and if he would let her keep her promise to Mrs. Toomey she would herd sheep until she had saved the amount in a herder's wages.

This was her plan after sleepless hours and three days of thinking.

Until their quarrel Kate never would have doubted that she could have her way without much difficulty, but then she had not met the cool polite stranger with the adamant beneath his polished exterior. The girl wondered if the whimsical unselfish friend and comrade ever would come back to her. The doubt of it set her chin quivering.

Kate trudged through the snow to turn back the sheep that Bowers had seen, and at the top of the hill stopped and gave a cry of relief and gladness. A thin blue thread of smoke was rising from the "draw" and she wondered how anyone could have come without her seeing them. She looked at the sun and calculated that she could shortly be starting the sheep back to the bed-ground, and her spirits rose immeasurably as she sent the strays scampering back to the others and returned to the small warmth which the sunny side of the rock afforded.

Kate was leaning against the boulder conjecturing as to whether it was Mormon Joe or the herder who had arrived, when Lingle rode around the side of the hill and came upon her suddenly.

Immediately the deputy's face set in lines of sternness. He had been rehearsing his part in the dialogue which was to follow and believed he had it sufficiently well in hand to play the act admirably. This murder was the first big case he had had since being appointed deputy. It was a great opportunity and he meant to make the most of it, for if handled creditably it might prove a stepping-stone to the sheriff's office. The element of surprise he knew was most effective and he was counting upon it to obtain valuable admissions. In the scene, as he visualized it while riding, he was to advance gimlet-eyed, throw open his coat and confront her with the badge which made the guilty tremble.