The Fighting Shepherdess

At last, unable longer to sit quietly, Kate arose and leaned over him.

"Do you remember the Sand Coulee, Pete?--the Sand Coulee Roadhouse where you used to stop?" she asked softly.

His mumblings ceased as if her voice had penetrated his dulled ears. Then his lips moved: "The Sand Coulee Roadhouse--the Sand Coulee--"

"Where you trapped. Remember the bear hides you brought in that spring Katie left?"

"The pack's slippin' agin--them saddles is far and away too narrer--and them green hides weigh like lead--" He ran his words together like a person talking in his sleep.

"You load too heavy--you load to break a horse's back--Katie Prentice always told you that."

A troubled frown grew between his eyes as though he was groping, vainly groping for some elusive thought.

"Katie told me--Katie Prentice--" His voice trailed off and ended in a breath.

She made a gesture of despair, but repeated persistently: "She told you that you ought to be ashamed to pack a horse like that. Three hundred pounds, Pete Mullendore! You haven't any feeling for a horse."

"Killed Old Blue and left him on the trail. My, but you're gittin' growed up fast. Ain't you got a kiss for Pete?"

She leaned closer.

"Would you do something for me if I kissed you--if Katie Prentice kissed you, Pete Mullendore?"

She repeated her words, speaking in a whisper, with careful distinctness.

"Will you tell Katie something that she wants to know, if she kisses you, Pete Mullendore?"

"Goin' to take you back to the mountings next trip--learn you to tan hides good--with ashes and deer brains--all--same--squaw--make good squaw out o' you--Katie--break your spirit first--you brat--lick you till I break your heart."

Katie's hands clenched.

"My mother wouldn't let me go with you!"

A shadowy cunning crossed his face.

"You'll go, when I say so. I got the whip-hand o' Jezebel."

"You're bragging, Pete Mullendore. My mother's not afraid of you."

"Jest a line on a postal--ud bring the Old Man on a special. You're more afraid of the Old Man than you are of dyin'--ain't it the truth, Isabelle?" he mumbled.

"You're only talking to hear yourself--you wouldn't know where to write. You've forgotten the name of the town where the 'Old Man' lives. You can't remember at all, can you, Pete?"

A frown lined his forehead while she waited with parted lips, afraid to move lest she start him rambling elsewhere again.

"You couldn't say the name of the town where Katie Prentice's father lives!"

Bending over him, rigid, tense, it seemed as though she would draw the answer from him through sheer will power.

He rolled his head fretfully to and fro, looking into her eyes with dilated pupils that burned in yellow bloodshot eyeballs. The wind rattled loose wagon bolts and scattered the ashes on the hearth in a puff, while Kate with a thumping heart waited for a response.