The Fighting Shepherdess

"If I knew some one to ask--"

"There's Maggie Taylor," Mrs. Toomey suggested.

"And Mormon Joe's Kate," Toomey added, laughing.

"Who's she?" the boy asked curiously.

"Do you remember the day when you were here before that we met those people driving a band of sheep--a man and a barefooted girl in overalls?"

Hughie's eyes sparkled: "They stopped here, then?"

Toomey scowled.

"Yes, confound 'em! I've had more than one 'run in' with 'em since over range and water. But," he urged, "don't let that hinder you. They live with their sheep back there in the foothills like a couple of white savages, and she's some greener than alfalfa. Go and ask her. You'll get some fun out of it. I dare you! I'll bet you a saddle blanket against anything you like that you haven't got the sand to take her."

"Done!" Hughie Disston's eyes were dancing. "If my nerve fails me when I see her, you are in a new Navajo."

It was a great lark to Disston, now a tall boy of nineteen, handsome, attractive, with the soft drawl of his southern speech and the easy manners of those who have associated much with women-folk. He was in high spirits as, one morning early, he and Teeters turned off from the main road and took the faint trail which led up Bitter Creek.

They rode until they saw two tepees showing white through the willows.

"We're in luck to catch them home at this hour," said Teeters, as they heard a faint tinkle from the corrals on the other side of the creek. "They've got the sheep inside--must be cuttin' out. Yes," as they forded and drew closer, "there's Kate at the dodge gate."

The corral was a crude affair, built at the minimum of expense, of crooked cottonwood poles, willow sticks and brush interlaced. It was divided into three sections, with a chute running from the larger division into two smaller ones.

Kate was standing at the "dodge gate" at the end of the chute separating the sheep as they came through by throwing the gate to and fro, thus sending each into the division in which it belonged. It was work which required intense concentration, a trained eye and quick brain, and even Disston and Teeters, who knew nothing of sheep, could appreciate the remarkable skill with which the girl performed the task.

"Let 'em come, Uncle Joe!" she called in her clear confident voice.

Mormon Joe flapped a grain sack over the backs of the sheep and having started a leader the rest went through the chute on the run.

When the last one was through Kate's aching arm dropped limply to her side and she called in a tired but jubilant voice: "I don't believe I've made a single mistake this time."