The Fighting Shepherdess

"It isn't yet clear to me why success means so much to you," he said, bewildered.

"Because," she cried, "soon after you left I went through purgatory for that want of money, and because I was nobody--because I was 'Mormon Joe's Kate,' accused of murder, and the daughter of 'Jezebel of the Sand Coulee,' and have nobody for a father!"

"Why didn't you ask me to come when I telegraphed you!"

"I didn't dare--I was afraid to test you. If you, too, had failed me, it would have crushed me. Perhaps all this sounds absurd and melodramatic, but I can't help it.

"You know, everybody has some little quirk in his brain that makes him different--some trait that isn't quite normal. I've come to watch for it, and it's always there, even in the most commonplace people. It's the quirk which, when accentuated, makes religious fanatics, screaming suffragists and anarchists. My 'twist' takes the form of an uncontrollable desire to retaliate upon those who have deliberately, through sheer cruelty and without any personal reason for their animosity, gone out of their way to hurt me."

That was it, then--she had been hurt--terribly!

Her eyes were like steel, her voice trembled with the intensity of the passion that shook her as she continued: "I hate them in Prouty! I can't conceive of any other feeling towards the town or its inhabitants. I don't suppose it will ever come in my way to pay in full the debt I owe them, but I can at least by my own efforts rise above them and force their grudging recognition!"

"I understand now," Disston said slowly. "But, Kate, is it worth the price you'll pay for it?"

"I'm used to paying well for everything, whether it's success or experience," she replied bitterly. "As I feel now, it's worth the sacrifice demanded, and I'm willing to make it."

"It's like seeing a great musician concentrate his energies upon the banjo--he may dignify the instrument, but he belittles himself in doing it. Kate," he pleaded, "don't throw away any years of happiness! Don't hurt your own character for a handful of nonentities whose importance you exaggerate! I'm right, believe me."

"I am as I am, and I have to learn all my lessons by experience."

"It may be too late when you've learned this one," he said sadly.

"Too late!" She shivered. A specter rose before her that she had seen before--hard-featured, domineering, unloved, unloving, chafing in ghastly solitude, alone with her sheep and her money, and the best years of her life behind her. She saw herself as her work and her thoughts would make her. For an instant she wavered. If Disston had known, he might have swayed her then, but, since he could not, he only said with an effort: "If your love for me isn't big enough to make you abandon this purpose, I shan't urge you. I know it would be useless. You have a strange nature, Kate--a mixture of steel and velvet, of wormwood and honey."