The Fighting Shepherdess

Outside all the world was going home with eager, hurrying feet and she paused, looking indifferently up and down the street. The nearest restaurant was not inviting, but it answered well enough. After a few mouthfuls, Kate crumpled the paper napkin, paid her bill, and walked dispiritedly back to the hotel.

More often than not, the momentous happenings in life come without warning, and with no stage-setting to enhance the dramatic effect. Certainly there was nothing in the announcement of the now too friendly clerk that "she had a visitor who looked like new money," to prognosticate that once Kate had crossed the threshold of the red-plush parlor, her life would never be the same again.

It was Bowers, of course--she thought--Bowers come too late to take her to the restaurant whose delectable "grub" was one of his boasted memories of Omaha. Her conclusion was correct that Bowers was there, wearing his new clothes like a disguise, his eyes shining with eagerness. But it was not Bowers that Kate saw in the dim light as she stepped through the doorway--it was the man who at intervals had been strongly in her thoughts all day, for whom she had unconsciously kept a lookout, impelled by an inexplicable desire to see him again and remove that perplexing, haunting sense of having seen him somewhere before.

Kate felt herself trembling when the man arose from the sofa facing the door. As if by divination she recognized some impending event of importance to herself. He was no casual caller brought by idle curiosity, she was sure of that.

There was in his eyes a tremendous hope, and a yearning tenderness in his face which seemed to draw her into his arms. It required an effort of will to remain passive as he approached.

Without explanation or apology, he put his hand under her chin and raised it with all gentleness, studying meanwhile every lineament of her face.

Kate watched the light of conviction grow in his eyes. Then she felt an arm about her shoulder and herself being drawn close against her father's heart as he exclaimed brokenly: "My baby-girl, grown up! My Kate!"