The Fighting Shepherdess

Anyway, one thing was certain; her poor little romance, builded upon so slight a foundation as an impulsive boy's ephemeral interest, was over. He would not come again--and she cared. She put her hand to her throat. It ached with the lump in it--yes, she cared.

The tears slipped down and wet the flour-sack pillow case. The outlines of the coffee pot on the stove and the frying pan dangling on the door grew blurred. Her eyes were still swimming when she suddenly held her breath.

An unfamiliar sound had caught her ear, a sound like a stealthy footstep. In the instant that she waited to be sure, a hand and forearm reached inside the door and laid something on the floor.

"Who's there?"

There was no response to the imperative interrogation.

With the same movement that she swung her feet over the edge of the bunk she reached for her rifle and ran to the door. There was not a sound or sign that was unusual save that the horses had stopped eating and with ears thrown forward were looking down the gulch. She picked up the paper that lay on the floor, struck a match and read a scrawl by its flare: WARNING Stop where you are if you ain't looking for trouble. Them range maggots of yourn ain't wanted on the mountain this summer.

What did it mean? The match burned to her fingers while she conjectured. Who was objecting? Neifkins? Since there was ample range for both, and each had kept to the boundaries which he tacitly recognized, there had been no dispute. A horse outfit grazing a small herd of horses during the summer months, and a dry-farmer with a couple of milch cows, who, while he plowed and planted and prayed for rain, was incidentally demonstrating the exact length of time that a human being could live on jack-rabbit and navy beans, were the only other users of the mountain range. Was it the hoax of some local humorist? Or an attempt to intimidate and worry her by someone whose enmity she had incurred?

Whatever the motive, was it possible that any one knew her so little as to believe they could frighten her in any such manner? Her lip curled as she asked herself the question. She had imagined that she had at least proved her courage.

Bowers, she knew, would stand by her; the others, perhaps, would use the familiar argument that it cost too much for repairs to be shot up for forty-five dollars a month.

Finally, she tossed the note on the sideboard and stepped out on the wagon tongue. The stars glimmered overhead and the shadows lay black and mysterious in the gulch, but she felt no fear as she stood there straight and soldierlike, her eyes sparkling defiance. She had, rather, a feeling of gratitude for the diversion--a hope that the threatened "trouble" might act as a kind of counter-irritant to the dull ache of her heavy heart.