The Fighting Shepherdess Read online

  THE FIGHTING SHEPHERDESS

  by

  CAROLINE LOCKHART

  With Frontispiece by M. Leone Bracker

  Kate was sitting on a rock--a dark picturesque silhouetteagainst the sky. See page 235.]

  A. L. Burt CompanyPublishers New YorkPublished by arrangement with Small, Maynard & Company

  Copyright, 1919,By Small, Maynard & Company(Incorporated)

  Second Printing, February, 1919Third Printing, March, 1919Fourth Printing, March, 1919Fifth Printing, May, 1919Sixth Printing, June, 1919

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER PAGE I The Sand Coulee Roadhouse 1 II An Historic Occasion 13 III Prouty 28 IV Disillusionment 40 V For Always 52 VI The Wolf Scratches 58 VII The Blood of Jezebel 75 VIII The Man of Mystery 85 IX The Summons 98 X The Bank Puts on the Screws 109 XI Kate Keeps Her Promise 120 XII The Dude Wrangler 131 XIII Mrs. Toomey's Friendship Is Tested 139 XIV Like Any Other Herder 156 XV One More Whirl 165 XVI Straws 175 XVII Extremes Meet 189 XVIII A Warning 207 XIX An Old, Old Friend 212 XX The Fork of the Road 228 XXI "Heart and Hand" 253 XXII Mullendore Wins 263 XXIII When the Black Spot Hit 274 XXIV Toomey Goes into Something 283 XXV The Chinook 298 XXVI Taking Her Medicine 309 XXVII The Sheep Queen 322 XXVIII The Surprise of Mr. Wentz's Life 333 XXIX Toomey Distinguishes Himself 344 XXX Her Day 353

  THE FIGHTING SHEPHERDESS

  CHAPTER I

  THE SAND COULEE ROADHOUSE

  A heavily laden freight wagon, piled high with ranch supplies, stood inthe dooryard before a long loghouse. The yard was fenced with crookedcottonwood poles so that it served also as a corral, around which theleaders of the freight team wandered, stripped of their harness, lookingfor a place to roll.

  A woman stood on tip-toe gritting her teeth in exasperation as shetugged at the check-rein on the big wheelhorse, which stuck obstinatelyin the ring. When she loosened it finally, she stooped and looked underthe horse's neck at the girl of fourteen or thereabouts, who wasunharnessing the horse on the other side. "Good God, Kate," exclaimedthe woman irritably; "how many times must I tell you to unhook thetraces before you do up the lines? One of these days you'll have thedamnedest runaway in seven states."

  The girl, whose thoughts obviously were not on what she was doing,obeyed immediately, and without replying looped up the heavy traces,throwing and tying the lines over the hames with experienced hands.

  The resemblance between mother and daughter was so slight that it mightbe said not to exist at all. It was clear that Kate's wide, thoughtfuleyes, generous mouth and softly curving but firm chin came from theother side, as did her height. Already she was half a head taller thanthe short, wiry, tough-fibered woman with the small hard features whowas known throughout the southern half of Wyoming as "Jezebel of theSand Coulee."

  A long flat braid of fair hair swung below the girl's waist and on hercheeks a warm red showed through the golden tan. Her slim straightfigure was eloquent of suppleness and strength and her movements, quick,purposeful, showed decision and activity of mind. They were ascharacteristic as her directness of speech.

  The Sand Coulee Roadhouse was a notorious place. The woman who kept itcalled herself Isabel Bain--Bain having been the name of one of thenumerous husbands from whom she had separated to remarry in anotherstate, without the formality of a divorce. She was noted not only forher remarkable horsemanship, but for her exceptional handiness with arope and branding iron, and her inability to distinguish her neighbors'livestock from her own.

  "Pete Mullendore's gettin' in." There was a frown on Kate's face as shespoke and uneasiness in the glance she sent toward the string ofpack-horses filing along the fence.

  The woman said warningly, "Don't you pull off any of your tantrums--youtreat him right."

  "I'll treat him right," hotly, "as long as he behaves himself. Mother,"with entreaty in her voice, "won't _you_ settle him if he gets fresh?"

  Jezebel only laughed and as the gate of the corral scraped whenMullendore pulled it open to herd a saddle horse and pack poniesthrough, she called out in her harsh croak:

  "Hello, Pete!"

  "Hello yourself," he answered, but he looked at her daughter.

  As soon as they were through the gate the pack ponies stopped and stoodwith spreading legs and drooping heads while Mullendore sauntered overto Kate and laid a hand familiarly on her shoulder.

  "Ain't you got a howdy for me, kid?"

  She moved aside and began stripping the harness from the horse for thequite evident purpose of avoiding his touch.

  "You'd better get them packs off," she replied, curtly. "Looks likeyou'd got on three hundred pounds."

  "Wouldn't be surprised. Them bear traps weigh twenty poun' each, andgreen hides don't feel like feathers, come to pack 'em over the trailI've come."

  Kate looked at him for the first time.

  "I wisht I was a man! I bet I'd work you over for the way you abuse yourstock!"

  Mullendore laughed.

  "Glad you ain't, Katie--but not because I'd be afraid of gettin' beatup."

  He looked her up and down with mocking significance, "Say, but you'llmake a great squaw for some feller. Been thinkin' I'd make a deal withyour mother to take you back to the mountings with me when I go. I'lllearn you how to tan hides, and a lot of things you don't know."

  The girl's lip curled.

  "Yes, I'd _like_ to tan hides for _you_, Pete Mullendore! When I getfrost bit in August I'll go, but not before."

  He replied easily:

  "You ain't of age yet, Katie, and you have to mind your maw. I've got anidee that she'll tell you to go if I say so."

  "A whole lot my mother would mind what you say!" Yet in spite of herdefiance a look of fear crossed the girl's face.

  She slipped her arm through the harness and started towards the shed,Mullendore following with his slouching walk, an unprepossessing figurein his faded overalls, black and white mackinaw coat and woolen cap.

  The trapper was tall and lank, with a pair of curious, unforgettableeyes looking out from a swarthy face that told of Indian blood. Theywere round rather than the oblong shape to be expected in his type, andthe iris a muddy blue-gray. The effect was indescribably queer, and wasaccentuated by the coal-black lashes and straight black brows which metabove a rather thick nose. He had a low forehead, and when he grinnedhis teeth gleamed like ivory in his dark face. He boasted ofApache-Mexican blood "with a streak of white."

  While Kate hung the harness on its peg, Mullendore, waited for heroutside. "My! My! Katie," he leered at her as she came back, "but you'regettin' to be a big girl! Them legs looked like a couple of pitchforkhandles when I went away, and now the shape they've got!"

  He laughed in malicious enjoymen
t as he saw the color rise to the rootsof her hair; and when she would have passed, reached out and grasped herarm.

  "Let me be, Pete Mullendore!" She tried to pull loose.

  "When you've give me a kiss." There was a flame in the muddy eyes.

  With a twist she freed herself and cried with fury vibrating in hervoice, "I hate you--I hate you! You--" she sought for a sufficientlyopprobrious word--"nigger!"

  Mullendore's face took on a peculiar ashiness. Then with an oath and achoking snarl of rage he jumped for her. Kate's long braid just escapedhis finger tips.

  "Mother! Mother! Make him quit!" There was terror in the shrill cry asthe girl ran towards the freight wagon. The response to the appeal camein a hard voice:

  "You needn't expect me to take up your fights. You finish what youstart."

  Kate gave her mother a despairing look and ran towards the pack ponies,with Mullendore now close at her heels. Spurred by fear, she dodged inand out, doubling and redoubling, endeavoring to keep a pony betweenherself and her pursuer. Once or twice a fold of her skirt slippedthrough his grasp, but she was young and fleet of foot, and after thegame of hare and hounds had kept up for a few minutes her pursuer'sbreath was coming short and labored. Finally, he stopped:

  "You little----!" He panted the epithet. "I'll get you yet!"

  She glared at him across a pony's neck and ran out her tongue. Then,defiantly:

  "I ain't scart of you!"

  A drawling voice made them both turn quickly. "As an entirely impartialand unbiased spectator, friend, I should say that you are outclassed."The man addressed himself to Mullendore. The stranger unobserved hadentered by the corral gate. He was a typical sheepherder in looks if notin speech, even to the collie that stood by his side. He wore a dusty,high-crowned black hat, overalls, mackinaw coat, with a small woolenscarf twisted about his neck, and in his hand he carried a gnarledstaff. His eyes had a humorously cynical light lurking in their browndepths.

  Mullendore did not reply, but with another oath began to untie the lashrope from the nearest pack.

  "Wonder if I could get a drink of water?" The stranger turned to Kate ashe spoke, lifting his hat to disclose a high white forehead--a foreheadas fine as it was unexpected in a man trailing a bunch of sheep. The menwho raised their hats to the women of the Sand Coulee were not numerous,and Kate's eyes widened perceptibly before she replied heartily, "Sureyou can."

  Jezebel, who had come up leading the big wheel horse, saidsignificantly, "Somethin' stronger, if you like."

  The fierce eagerness which leaped into the stranger's eyes screamed hisweakness, yet he did not jump at the offer she held out. The struggle inhis mind was obvious as he stood looking uncertainly into the face thatwas stamped with the impress of wide and sordid experiences. Kate'svoice broke the short silence, "He said 'water,' Mother." She spokesharply, and with a curt inclination of her head to the sheepherderadded, "The water barrel's at the back door, Mister. Come with me."Apparently this made his decision for him, for he followed the girl atonce, while Jezebel with a shrug walked on with the horse.

  Kate handed the stranger the long-handled tin dipper and watched himgravely while he drank the water in gulps, draining it to the last drop.

  "Guess you're a booze-fighter, Mister," she observed, casually, much asshe might have commented that his unkempt beard was brown. Amusementtwinkled in his eyes at the personal remark and her utterunconsciousness of having said anything at which by any chance he couldtake offense, but he replied noncommittally:

  "I've put away my share, Miss."

  "I can always pick 'em out. Nearly all the freighters and cow punchersthat stop here get drunk."

  He looked at her quizzically.

  "The trapper you were playing tag with when I came looks as if he mightbe ugly when he'd had too much."

  He was startled by the intensity of the expression which came over herface as she said, between her clenched teeth:

  "I hate that 'breed'!"

  "He isn't just the pardner," dryly, "that I'd select for a long campingtrip."

  Her pupils dilated and she lowered her voice:

  "He's ornery--Pete Mullendore."

  As though in response to his name, that person came around the cornerwith his bent-kneed slouch, giving to the girl as he passed a look somalignant, and holding so unmistakable a threat, that it chilled andsobered the stranger who stood leaning against the water barrel. Thegirl returned it with a stare of brave defiance, but her hand trembledas she returned the dipper to its nail. She looked at him wistfully, andwith a note of entreaty in her voice asked:

  "Why don't you camp here to-night, Mister?"

  The sheepherder shook his head.

  "I've got to get on to the next water hole. I have five hundred head ofewes in the road and they haven't had a drink for two days. They'regetting hard to hold."

  Kate volunteered:

  "You've about a mile and a half to go."

  "Yes, I know. Well--s'long, and good luck!" He reached for hissheepherder's staff and once more raised his hat with a manner whichspoke of another environment. Before he turned the corner of the housean impulse prompted him to look back. Involuntarily he all but stopped.Her eyes had in them a despairing look that seemed a direct appeal forhelp. But he smiled at her, touched his hat brim and went on. The girl'slook haunted him as he trudged along the road in the thick white dustkicked up by the tiny hoofs of the moving sheep.

  "She's afraid of that 'breed,'" he thought, and tried to find comfort intelling himself that there was no occasion for alarm, with her mother,hard-visaged as she was, within call. Yet as unconsciously he keptglancing back at the lonely roadhouse, sprawling squat and ugly on thedesolate sweep of sand and sagebrush, the only sign of human habitationwithin the circle of the wide horizon, he had the same sinking feelingat the heart which came to him when he had to stand helpless watching acoyote pull down a lamb. It was in vain he argued that there was nothingto do but what he had done--go on and mind his own business--for thechild's despairing, reproachful eyes followed him and his uneasinessremained with him after he had reached the water hole. While the sheepgrazed after drinking he pulled the pack from the burro that carried hisbelongings. From among the folds of a little tepee tent he took out amarred violin case and laid it carefully on the ground, apart. A coupleof cowhide paniers contained his meager food supply and blackenedcooking utensils. These, with two army blankets, some extra clothing anda bell for the burro, completed his outfit.

  The sheep dog lay with his head on his paws, following every movementwith loving eyes.

  The sheepherder scraped a smooth place with the side of his foot, set uphis tepee and spread the blankets inside. Then he built a tiny sagebrushfire, filled his battered coffee pot at the spring in the "draw," threwin a small handful of coffee, and, when the sagebrush was burned tocoals, set it to boil. He warmed over a few cooked beans in a lard can,sliced bacon and laid it with great exactness in a long-handled fryingpan and placed it on the coals. Then unwrapping a half dozen coldbaking-powder biscuits from a dish towel he put them on a tin cover onthe ground near a tin cup and plate and a knife and fork.

  The man moved lightly, with the deftness of experience, stopping everynow and then to cast a look at the sheep that were slowly feeding backpreparatory to bedding down. And each time he did so, his eyesunconsciously sought the road in the direction from which he had come,and as often his face clouded with a troubled frown.

  When the bacon was brown and the coffee bubbled in the pot, he sat downcrosslegged with his plate in his lap and the tin cup beside him on theground. He ate hungrily, yet with an abstracted expression, which showedthat his thoughts were not on his food.

  After he had finished he broke open the biscuits which remained, soakedthem in the bacon grease and tossed them to the dog, which caught themin the air and swallowed them at a gulp. Then he got to his feet andfilled his pipe. He looked contemplatively at a few sheep feeding awayfrom the main band and said as he waved his arm in an encirclinggestu
re:

  "Way 'round 'em, Shep! Better bring 'em in."

  The dog responded instantly, his handsome tail waving like a plume as hebounded over the sagebrush and gathered in the stragglers.

  By the time the herder had washed his dishes and finished his pipe thesun was well below the horizon and the sky in the west a riot of pinkand amber and red. The well-trained sheep fed back and dropped down intwos and threes on a spot not far from the tepee where it pleased theirfancy to bed. Save for the distant tinkle of the bell on the burro, andthe stirring of the sheep, the herder might have been alone in theuniverse. When he had set his dishes and food back in the paniers andcovered them with a piece of "tarp," in housewifely orderliness, heopened the black case and took out the violin with a care that amountedto tenderness. The first stroke of the bow bespoke the trained hand. Hedid not sit, but knelt in the sand with his face to the west as heplayed like some pagan sun-worshiper, his expression rapt, intent.Strains from the world's best music rose and fell in throbbing sweetnesson the desert stillness, music which told beyond peradventure that somecataclysm in the player's life had shaken him from his rightful niche.It proclaimed this travel-stained sheepherder in his faded overalls andpeak-crowned limp-brimmed hat another of the incongruities of the farwest. The sagebrush plains and mountains have held the secrets of manyMysteries locked in their silent breasts, for, since the coming of theWhite Man, they have been a haven for civilization's Mistakes, Failuresand Misfits.

  While he poured out his soul with only the sheep and the tired colliesleeping on its paws for audience, the gorgeous sunset died and a chillwind came up, scattering the gray ashes of the camp fire and swaying thetepee tent. Suddenly he stopped and shivered a little in spite of hiswoolen shirt. "Dog-gone!" he said abruptly, aloud, as he put the violinaway, "I can't get that kid out of my thoughts!" Though he could nothave told why he did so, or what he might, even remotely, expect tohear, he stood and listened intently before he stooped and disappearedfor the night between the flaps of the tent.

  He turned often between the blankets of his hard bed, disturbed byuneasy 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 adisembodied spirit floating somewhere in the air. This time he sat upwith 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 manthrew back the blanket and sprang to his feet. It took only a moment toget into his clothes and step out into a night that had turned pitchdark.

  "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 alittle shoulder cape snapping in the wind, her breath coming short in asound that was a mixture of exhaustion and sobs.

  "I was afraid I couldn't find you till daylight. I heard a bell, but Ididn'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 mewith 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 withthe 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 waschokin' me. I got to a quirt and struck him on the head--with thehandle. It was loaded. He dropped like he was dead. I ran to my room andclum out the window--"

  "Your mother--"

  "She--laughed."

  "God!" He stooped and picked up the little bundle she had dropped at herfeet. "Come along, Partner. You are going into the sheep business with'Mormon Joe.'"