The Fighting Shepherdess

When their merriment had subsided, she demanded: "Don't you like my overalls?"

He looked her over critically--at her face with the frank gray eyes and the vivid red of health glowing through the tan; at the long flat braid of fair hair, which hung below the cantle of the saddle; at her slender bare feet thrust through the stirrups.

"You'd look pretty in anything," he responded gallantly.

She detected the evasion and persisted: "But you think I'd look nicer in dresses, don't you?"

Embarrassed, he responded hesitatingly: "You see--down South where I come from the girls all wear white and lace and ribbon sashes and carry parasols and think a lot about their complexions. You're just--different."

The herder waved his arm. "Way 'round 'em, Shep," and the sheep began moving.

"Good-bye," the girl gathered up the reins reluctantly.

"You didn't tell me your name."

"Katie Prentice."

"Mine's Hughie Disston," he added, his black eyes shining with friendliness. "Maybe I'll see you again sometime."

She answered shyly: "Maybe."

Toomey started away at a gallop, calling sharply: "Come on, Hughie!"

The boy followed with obvious reluctance, sending a smile over his shoulder when he found that the girl was looking after him.

"Hope you make out all right with your town," said Teeters politely as, ignoring his employer's instructions, he turned his horse's head in a direction of his own choosing.

"No doubt about it," replied the Major, briskly, gathering up the lines and bringing the stub of a whip down with a thwack upon each back impartially. "S'long!" He waved it at the girl and sheepherder. "I trust you'll find a location to suit you."

"Pardner," said Mormon Joe suddenly, when the Major was a blur in a cloud of dust and the horsemen were specks in the distance, "this looks like home to me somehow. There ought to be great sheep feed over there in the foothills and summer range in the mountains. What do you think of it?"

"Oh--goody!" the girl cried eagerly. "Isn't it funny, I was hoping you'd say that."

He looked at her quizzically.

"Tired of trailing sheep, Katie, or do you think you might have company?"

She flushed in confusion, but admitted honestly: "Both, maybe."