The Fighting Shepherdess Part 47

"Quite a bit of it--it's spreadin'. Neifkins has lost several sheep a'ready by poison, but it's careless herdin'."

"I should own that section," Kate commented. "It's public land. I could have it put up at auction and buy it in, but I suppose they'd run the price up on me just to make me pay for it. How are Svenson's lambs doing?"

"They're so fat they can't play--and Woods's got twenty-five hundred of the best wethers that ever blatted!"

Kate's eyes sparkled.

"I'm going to be a real Sheep Queen, Bowers, if wool and mutton keep climbing. The price of wool is the highest in its history."

Bowers looked at her in mute admiration. He was always loyal, but when she was sociable and friendly like this he adored her. Alas, however, the times when she was so were yearly growing rarer.

Kate went on tentatively:

"I think I'll 'cut' for a hard winter. You know my motto, 'Better be sure than sorry.'"

"I wouldn't be surprised if 'twan't a humdinger--last winter was so open. I think we'd be safer if we ship everything that's fat enough."

Bowers always said "we" when he spoke of the Outfit, though he was still only a camptender working for wages.

Kate relied upon him to keep her informed of the details of the business, which she had less time than formerly to look after personally. His judgment was sometimes at fault, but she trusted his honesty implicitly and, though she gave him little of her confidence, it was so much more than she gave to any other person that he was flattered by it.

"Guess what that Boston woolbuyer is offering me?" She tapped a letter.

"No idee."

"Twenty-six cents."

Bowers whistled.

"Gosh a'mighty! You're goin' to take it, ain't you?"

"I'll get a quarter more, if I hold out for it."

His face fell a little.

"I'll get it!" Her voice had a metallic quality. "It's a fine long staple, and clean. If he won't, some one else will give it to me."

The sheep woman had the reputation now of being difficult to deal with, of haggling over fractions, and it was of this that Bowers was thinking.

To others he would never admit that she was anything but perfect, though to himself he acknowledged the hardening process that was going on in her. He saw the growth of the driving ambition which made her indifferent to everything that did not tend to her personal interest.

Outside of himself and Teeters, Kate took no interest whatever in individuals. There was no human note in her intercourse with those who worked for her. She cared for results only, and showed it.

They resented her appraising eyes, her cold censure when they blundered, her indifference to them as human beings, and they revenged themselves in the many ways that lie in a herder's power if he cares to do so.

They gave away to the dry-farmers in the vicinity the supplies and halves of mutton she furnished them. In the lambing season they left the lambs whose mothers refused to own them to die when a little extra effort would have saved them. When stragglers split off from the herd they made no great attempt to recover them. They shot at coyotes and wildcats when it was convenient, but did not go out of their way to hunt them.

She was just but not generous. She never had spared herself, and she did not spare her herders. "Hard as nails" was the verdict in general. In her presence they were taciturn to sullenness; among themselves they criticised her constantly, exaggerating her faults and taking delight in recounting her failures. She was too familiar with every detail of the business for her men to dare to neglect her interests too flagrantly, but they had learned to a nicety how high their percentage of losses might run without getting their "time" for it.

Bowers knew of this silent hostility, which was so unnecessary, but he dared not speak of it. He could only deny that she had faults and resent it with violence when the criticisms become too objectionable.

If Kate had known of the antagonism, it would have made no difference--she would rather have taken the losses it entailed than to conciliate. She would have argued that if she was harsh, imperious, it was her privilege--she had earned it.

Life for Kate had resolved itself into an unromantic routine--like extracting the last penny for her wool that was possible, shipping on favorable markets, acquiring advantageous leases, discharging incapable herders and hiring others, eliminating waste and unnecessary expenditures, studying range conditions against hard winters.

"Any mail for the herders?" Bowers asked, innocently, since she showed no disposition to give him her confidence farther.

He watched her intently as she sorted the mail, tossing him a paper finally from which he removed the wrapper with a certain eagerness. He peered into it with a secrecy that attracted her attention, and, looking at it hard, Kate recognized it as the publication of a matrimonial agency.

"Bowers, you surprise me!" She regarded him quizzically.

Bowers started guiltily.

"Aw--it's one they sent me," he said disparagingly--"jest a sample copy."

"Bowers, I think you're lying," she accused him good-humoredly. "Tell me the truth--didn't you send for it?"

He squirmed and colored.

"I did write to 'em--out of cur'osity."

"Don't forget that married men are not hired into this Outfit," she reminded him, smiling. "I'd be sorry to lose you."

"Gosh a'mighty!" he protested vigorously. "I ain't no use fer women!"

The subject seemed to interest him, however, for he continued with animation:

"They's always somethin' about 'em I don't like when I git to know 'em.

I've knowed several real well--six or eight, altogether, countin' two that run restauraws and one that done my warshin'. I got a kind o'

cur'osity about 'em, but I don't take no personal interest in 'em.

Why--Gosh--a'mighty--"

Bowers nearly kicked the stove over in his embarra.s.sed denial.

Kate looked after him speculatively as he made his escape in a relief that was rather obvious. His protests had been too vehement to be convincing. Was he growing discontented? Didn't her friendship satisfy him any longer?

There was something of the patient trust of a sheepdog in Bowers's fidelity. "The queen can do no wrong," was his att.i.tude. Kate was so accustomed to his devotion and admiration that it gave her a twinge to think of sharing it.

She called after him as he was leaving:

"If you meet that freighter, tell him for me he'll get his check if he gets in again as early as he did last trip. I won't have a horse left with a sound pair of shoulders."

"And I fergot to tell you that somebody's 'salted' over in Burnt Basin,"

he answered, turning back. "There's a hunerd head o' cattle eatin' off the feed there. We'll need that, later."

"Tsch! tsch!" Kate frowned her annoyance at the information.

"Be sure and warn Neifkins's herder as soon as you can get around to it," she reminded him.

"You bet!" Bowers responded cheerfully, and went on.