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Fighting Shepherdess, The

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<h2>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> <h3>TAKING HER MEDICINE</h3></div> The moon was up when Kate got in from town, for she had not hurried. There was no one there to greet her except the sheep dog that ran out barking. She unsaddled, turned the horse in the corral, and picked up the mail sack heavy with Bowers’s missives. She had not eaten since noon, but she was not hungry, and she went to her wagon immediately. Opening the door she stood there for a moment. The stillness appalled her. How could such a small space give forth such a sense of big emptiness, she wondered. Everything was empty—her life, her arms, and, for the moment, even her ambitions. Unexpectedly the thought overwhelmed her. Throwing down the mail sack and tossing her hat upon it, she sank on the side bench where she folded her arms on the edge of the bunk and buried her face in them. For a long time she remained so, motionless, in the silence that seemed to crush her. When Kate arose finally it was as if she were lifting a burden. Undressing slowly, she lay down on the bunk and looked out through the window at the white world swimming in moonlight. Ordinarily, she shut her eyes to moonlight, it had a way of stirring up emotions which had no place in her scheme of life. It always made her think of Disston, of the light in his eyes when he had looked at her, of the feeling of his arms about her, of his lips on hers when he had kissed her. At such times it filled her with a longing for him which was a kind of sweet torture that unnerved her and made the goal for which she strove of infinitesimal importance. But that was one of the tricks of moonlight, she told herself angrily, to dwarf the things which counted, and with its false glamour give a fictitious value to those which in reality were but impediments. To-night the arguments were hollow as echoes. It was like telling herself, she thought, that she was going to sleep when she knew she was not. She yearned for Disston with all the intensity of her strong nature, and her efforts to conquer the longing seemed only to increase it. “God!” She sat up suddenly and struck her breast as though the blow might somehow stop the pain there, and asked herself fiercely: “Must I live forever with this heartache? Isn’t there some peace? Some way of dulling it until my heart stops beating?” She stretched out her arms and her voice broke with the sob that choked her as she cried miserably: “Oh, Hughie! Hughie! I love you, and I can’t help it!” She felt herself stifling in the wagon and flung aside the covering. Thrusting her bare feet into moccasins and slipping on a sweater, she stepped into the white world that had the still emptiness of space. The sheep dog got up from under the wagon and stood in front of her with a look of inquiry, but she gave no heed to him; instead, after a moment’s indecision, she walked swiftly to the hillside where a shaft of marble shone in the moonlight. The sheep dog was at her heels, and when she crawled beneath the wire that fenced the spot where Mormon Joe had turned to dust, it followed. Mormon Joe was only a name, a memory, but he had loved her unselfishly and truly. Kate clasped her arms about the shaft and laid her cheek against it as if in some way she might draw consolation from it. But its coldness chilled her. Then, with her face upturned in supplication, as though his soul might be somewhere in the infinite space above her, she cried aloud in her anguish as she had in another and different kind of crisis: “Uncle Joe, I’m lost! I don’t know which way to go—there’s no signboard to direct me. Please, please, if you can, come back and help me—please—help Katie Prentice!” The sheep dog with his head on his paws watched her gravely. In the corral below there was the sound of stirring horses; otherwise only silence answered her. No light, no help came to her. Her hands dropped gradually to her sides. It was always so—in the end she was thrown back upon herself. Nothing came to her save by her own efforts. There were no miracles performed for Kate Prentice. A sullen defiance filled her. If this was all life had for her she could stand it; she could go on as usual taking her medicine with as little fuss as possible. That’s all life seemed to be—taking the medicine the Fates doled out in one form or another. To live bravely, to die with all the courage one could muster, were the principal things anyhow. She got up from her knees by the sunken grave slowly and stood erect once more, holding her chin high in self-sufficient arrogance. She would take the best out of life as it offered and be done with ideals that ended in emotional hysteria like this present experience. Life was a compromise anyhow. If she couldn’t have the substance, she would have the shadow. If she couldn’t have friendships given her, she’d buy imitations that would answer. If love and romance were not for her, she’d accept the expedient that offered and be satisfied! Bowers was not due at headquarters for several days, so as soon as Kate found the leisure she set out to take his mail to him, anticipating with some enjoyment his confusion when he saw the extent of it. She came across him out in the hills, engaged in some occupation which so absorbed him that he did not hear her until she was all but upon him. “Oh, hello!” His face lighted up in pleased surprise when he saw her. “I was jest skinnin’ out a rattlesnake for you.” “Were you, Bowers?” She looked at him oddly. “You are always doing something nice for me, aren’t you?” “This is the purtiest rattler I’ve seen this season,” he declared with enthusiasm. “Look at the markin’ on him. I thought it ud show up kind of nifty laid around the cantle of your saddle. A rattlesnake skin shore makes a purty trimmin’, to my notion. Don’t know what he was doin’ out of his hole so late in the season. He was so chilled I got him easy—an old feller—nine rattles and a button.” Kate got off her horse and sat down to watch him while Bowers enumerated the possibilities of snake skins as decorations. “I brought your mail to you,” she said when he had finished.—“Letters.” “Now who could be writin’ to me?” he demanded in feigned innocence. “I’m curious myself, since there’s a bushel,” she answered dryly. Bowers looked up at the bulging mail sack and colored furiously. Then he blurted out in desperate candor: “I ain’t honest, but I won’t lie—I been advertisin’.” “What for?” The perspiration broke out on Bowers’s forehead. “I thought I’d git married, if anybody that looked good to me would have me.” “You’re not happy, Bowers?” she asked gently. “I ain’t sufferin’, but I ain’t livin’ in what you’d call no seventh heaven.” Kate smiled at the grim irony of his tone. “It’s not up to much, this life of ours out here,” she agreed in a low voice. “Nothin’ to look forward to—nothin’ to look back to,” he said bitterly. “I understand,” Kate nodded. “I never had as much home life as a coyote,” he continued with rebellion in his tone. “A coyote does git a den and a family around him every spring.” And he added shortly, “I’m lonesome.” They sat in a long silence, Kate with her hands clasped about a knee and looking off at the mountain. She turned to him after a while: “Do you like me, Bowers?” “I shore do.” Then she asked with quiet deliberation: “Well enough to—marry me?” Bowers looked at her, speechless. He managed finally: “Are you joshin’?” “No.” A prairie dog rose up in front of them and chattered. They both stared at him. Bowers reached over and took her gloved fingers between his two palms—in the same fashion a loyal subject might have touched his queen’s hand. “That’s a great thing you said to me, Miss Kate. I never expected any such honor ever to come to me. I’d crawl through cut glass and cactus for you. I guess you know it, too, but anything like that would be a mistake, Miss Kate. I ain’t in your class.” “My class!” bitterly. “What is my class? I’m in one by myself—I don’t belong anywhere.” She paused a moment, then went on: “We needn’t pretend to love each other—we’re not hypocrites, but we understand each other, our interests are the same, we are good friends, at least, and in the experiment there might be something better than our present existence.” “I want to see you happy,” he replied slowly. “I haven’t any other wish, and, right or wrong, I’ll do anything you say, but I’m as shore as we’re settin’ here that you’ll never find it with me. I thought—I hoped that Disston feller—” She interrupted sharply: “Don’t, Bowers, don’t!” Understanding grew in his troubled eyes as he looked at her quivering chin and mouth. “So that was it!” he reflected. Thick volumes of smoke rolled up from the engine attached to the mixed train that stood on the side-track which paralleled the shipping corrals at Prouty, to sink again in the heavy atmosphere presaging a storm. The clouds were leaden and sagged with the weight of snow about to fall. Teeters’s cattle bawled in the three front cars and the remaining “double deckers” were being loaded with Kate Prentice’s sheep. She had followed her early judgment in cutting down the number of her sheep for a hard winter and, in consequence, the engine had steam up to haul the longest stock train that had ever pulled out of Prouty. Bowers and his helpers were crowding the sheep up the runway into the last car when Kate rode up. She looked with pride at the mass of broad woolly backs as she sat with her arms folded on the saddle horn and thought to herself that if there were any better range sheep going into Omaha she would like to see them. She had made no mistake when she had graded up her herds with Rambouillets. Bowers saw her and left the chute. “Teeters is sick,” he announced, coming up. Kate’s face grew troubled. She and Teeters had shipped together ever since they had had anything to ship, for it had been mutually advantageous in many ways; but particularly to herself, since he looked after her interests and saved her the necessity of making the trip to the market herself. “Somethin’ he’s et,” Bowers vouchsafed. “The doctor says it’s pantomime pizenin’, or some sech name—anyhow, he’s plenty sick.” “Where is he?” Bowers nodded across the flat where they had been holding the sheep while waiting for their cars. Kate swung her horse about and galloped for the tent where Teeters lay groaning in his blankets on the ground. Teeters was ill indeed—a glance told her that—and there was not the remotest chance that he would be able to leave with the train. “I guess I’ll be all right by the time they’re ready to pull out,” he groaned. Kate made her decision quickly. “I’ll go myself. You’re too sick. You get to the hotel and go to bed.” Teeters protested through a paroxysm of pain: “You can’t do that, Miss Kate. It’s a tedious dirty trip in the caboose.” “I can’t help it. I’ve too much at stake to take a chance. There’s a big storm coming and I’ve got to get these sheep through in good shape. Don’t worry about me and take care of yourself.” The engine whistled a preliminary warning as Kate dropped the tent flap and swung back on her horse. Calling to Bowers to have the train held until she returned, she galloped to the Prouty House and ran up the stairs to her room, where she thrust her few articles in the flour sack that she tied on the back of her saddle when it was necessary to remain over night in town. The last frightened sheep had been urged up the chute and the door was closed when she threw her belongings on the platform of the caboose and informed Bowers that she was going along. He too protested, but her mind was made up. “We’re going to run into a storm, and if we’re sidetracked I want to be along. It’s not pleasant, but it has to be done.” It was useless to argue when Kate used that tone, so Bowers had to content himself with thinking that he would make her as comfortable as circumstances would allow. Kate stood in the doorway with her flour sack in her hand looking at Prouty as the brakes relaxed and the wheels began to grind. It was not exactly the way in which she had pictured her first trip into the world, but, with a cynical smile, it was as near the realization as her dreams ever were. Kate had not ridden more than a hundred miles on a train in her life, and her knowledge of cities was still gathered from books and magazines. As she had become more self-centered and absorbed in her work, her interest in the “outside” gradually had died. She told herself indifferently that there was time enough to gratify her curiosity. She sighed as she watched the town fade and then a snowflake, featherlike and moist, swirled under the projecting roof and melted on her cheek, to recall her to herself. She swung out over the step and looked to the east where the clouds hung sagging with their weight. Yes, it was well that she had come. Behind the plate-glass window of the Security State Bank its president stood with his hands thrust deep in his trousers’ pockets watching the long train as, with much belching of smoke, it climbed the slight grade. There were moments when Mr. Wentz cursed the Fate that had promoted him from his washing machine, and this was one of them. Neifkins, hunched in a leather chair in the banker’s office, had an obstinate look on his sunburned face. “I’d give about half I’m worth if that was your stock goin’ out,” said Wentz, as he reseated himself at his desk. Neifkins grunted. “I heard you the first time you said that.” The stubborn look on his face increased. “When I’m ready to ship, I’ll ship. I know what I’m about—ME.” Wentz did not look impressed by the boast. Neifkins added in a surly tone: “I don’t need no petticoat to show me how to handle sheep.” Wentz answered with a shrug: “Looks to me like you might follow a worse lead. She’s contracted for all the hay in sight and shoved the price on what’s left up to sixteen dollars in the stack. What you goin’ to do if you have to feed?” “I won’t have to feed; I’ll take my chance on that. It’s goin’ to be an open winter,” confidently. “It’s startin’ in like it,” Wentz replied dryly, as he glanced through the window where the falling snowflakes all but obscured the opposite side of the street. Then, emphatically: “I tell you, Neifkins, you Old Timers take too big risks.” “I suppose,” the sheepman sneered, “you’d recommend my gettin’ loaded up with a few hundred tons of hay I won’t need.” “I’d recommend anything that would make you safe.” Wentz lowered his voice, which vibrated with earnestness as he leaned forward in his chair: “Do you know what it means if a storm catches you and you have a big loss? It means that only a miracle will keep this bank from goin’ on the rocks. We’re hangin’ on by our eyelashes now, waiting for the payment of your first big note to give us a chance to get our breath. I have the ague every time I see a hard-boiled hat comin’ down the street, thinkin’ it’s a bank examiner. You know as well as I do that you’ve borrowed to the amount of your stock, and way beyond the ten per cent limit of the capital stock which we as a national bank are allowed to loan an individual—that it’s a serious offense if we’re found out.” “If I don’t,” Neifkins replied insolently, “it ain’t because you haven’t told me often enough.” “But you don’t seem to realize the position we’re in. If you did, you’d play safe and ship. It’s true enough that you might make more by holding on, but it’s just as true that a big storm could wipe you out.” His voice sank still lower and trembled as he confessed: “It’s the honest God’s truth that any two dozen of our largest depositors could close our doors to-day. I beg of you, Neifkins, to ship as soon as you can get cars.” Neifkins squared his thick shoulders in the chair. “Look here—I don’t allow no man to tell me how to run my business! When that note comes due I’ll be ready to meet it, so there’s no need of you gettin’ cold feet as reg'lar as a cloud comes up.” He arose. “This storm ain’t goin’ to last. May be a lot of snow will fall, but it won’t lay.” Neifkins’ sanguine predictions were not fulfilled, for the next day the sagging wires broke and Neifkins floundered through snow to his knees on his way down town. It lay three feet deep on the level and was still falling as though it could not stop. Every road and trail was obliterated. All the surrounding country was a white trackless waste and Prouty with its roofs groaning under their weight looked like a diamond-dusted picture on a Christmas card. There was less resonance in Neifkins’ jubilant tone when he stamped into the bank and declared that it was a record-breaker of a snow fall. Wentz asked sullenly, as he paced the floor: “How about the sheep, if this keeps up?” “I got herders that know what to do—that’s what I pay ’em for.” “Knowing what to do won’t help much, with the snow too deep for the sheep to paw, and a two-days’ drive from hay, even if you could get through.” There was the maximum of exasperation in the president’s voice. Neifkins replied stubbornly: “I’ve pulled through fifty storms like this and never had no big loss yet.” “But you’ve never had so much at stake. You’ve got us to consider—” “Don’t you fret!” Neifkins interrupted impatiently. “You’ve worried until you’re all worked up over somethin’ that hasn’t happened and ain’t goin’ to.” With this assurance, which left no comfort in its wake, Neifkins went out where the first icy blast of the predicted blizzard lifted his hat and whisked it down the street. The wind completed what the heavy snow had failed to do. Telephone and telegraph poles lay prone for a quarter of a mile at a stretch. It piled in drifts the snow already fallen and brought more. The blizzard enveloped Prouty until it required something more than normal courage to venture out of doors. It was the courage of desperation which ultimately sent Neifkins out in an attempt to get hay to his sheep. There was small resemblance between the optimist who had assured Wentz so confidently that everything would be all right and the perspiring and all but exhausted Neifkins who wallowed in snow to his arm-pits in an effort to break trail for the four-horse team whose driver was displaying increasing reluctance to go on with the load of baled hay stalled some mile and a half from town. “We might as well quit,” the driver called with a kind of desperate decision in his tone as he made to lay down the reins. “I can’t afford to pull the life out of my horses like I got to do to make even a third of the way to-day.” Dismayed by his threat to go back, Neifkins begged: “Don’t quit me like this. I got six thousand sheep that’ll starve if we don’t git this hay through.” The driver hesitated. Reluctantly he picked up the lines: “I’ll give it another go, but I’m sure it’s no use. The horses have pulled every pound that’s in ’em, and now this wheeler’s discouraged and startin’ to balk. Besides, if anybody asks you, the road is gettin’ no better fast.” The latter prediction in particular was correct, and their progress during the next hour could be measured in feet. The sweat trickled down the horses’ necks and legs, their thick winter coats lay slick to their sides, and their breath came labored from their heaving chests. Two and sometimes three out of the four were down at a time. The fight was too unequal; to pit their pygmean strength longer against the drifts and the fury of the elements was useless. Even Neifkins finally was convinced of that, and was about to admit as much when, without warning, wagon, driver and horses went over a cut-bank, where the animals lay on their backs, a kicking tangled mass. It was the end. For a second Neifkins stood staring, overwhelmed with the realization that he was worse off by a good many thousand dollars than when he had come into the country—that he was wiped out—broke—and that the thin ice upon which the Security State Bank had been skating would now let it through. <hr class='major' /> <div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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