The Fighting Shepherdess

Disston straightened and asked quickly: "Who's that, Jap? It looks like--"

"Mormon Joe's Kate," Toomey finished. His tone had a sneer in it. "You were very good friends when you left, I remember."

The eyes of both Mrs. Rathburn and her daughter showed surprise when Disston colored.

"That we are not now is her fault entirely," he answered. "How is she?"

Toomey shrugged a shoulder.

"If you mean physically--I should say her health was perfect. No one ever sees her. She lives out in the hills alone with her sheep and a couple of herders."

"How very extraordinary!" Miss Rathburn observed languidly.

"Plucky, I call it," Disston answered.

"They've named her the 'Sheep Queen of Bitter Crick.'" Toomey laughed disagreeably.

"It's curious you've never mentioned her, Hughie, when you've told us about everyone else in the country."

"I didn't think you'd be interested, Beth," he answered stiffly.

Toomey changed the subject and the incident seemed forgotten, but Mrs. Rathburn's eyes rested upon Hugh frequently with a look that was inquiring and speculative.

* * * * * Kate's heart always hardened and her backbone stiffened involuntarily the moment she had her first glimpse of Prouty. Invariably it had this effect upon her and to-day was no different from any other. Her eyes narrowed and her nerves tightened as though to meet the attack of an advancing enemy when at the edge of the bench, before she set the brake for the steep descent, she looked upon the town below her.

While her own feeling never altered and her attitude remained as implacable as the day she had sworn vengeance upon it, the bearing of the town had changed considerably. With cold inscrutable eyes she had watched open hostility and active enmity become indifference. Engrossed in its own troubles, Prouty had forgotten her, save when one of her rare visits reminded it of her existence. The comments upon such occasions were mostly of a humorous nature, pertaining to the "Sheep Queen," a title which had been bestowed upon her in derision.

They heard exaggerated accounts of her losses through storms and coyotes, knew that she acted as camptender and herder when necessary, continued to live in a sheep wagon, and they presumed that she was still deeply in debt to the mysterious person or persons from whom she had obtained money at the time the bank threatened foreclosure.

She was seldom mentioned except in connection with the murder of Mormon Joe, a story with which the inhabitants occasionally entertained strangers. In other words, she was of no consequence socially or financially.

Looking neither to the right nor to the left as she swung her leaders around the corner, yet no sign of the town's retrogression since her last visit escaped her--any more than did the mean small-town smirk upon the faces of a group of doorway loafers, who commented humorously upon the "Sheep Queen's" arrival.