Page:Caroline Lockhart--The Fighting Shepherdess.djvu/102

 she saw Mormon Joe going into his shack on the diagonal corner. She slackened her trot to a walk and watched while he unlocked the door, as though to read from his back something of his intentions in regard to the loan Kate had promised so confidently.

It had seemed too good to be realized, so she had not told Jap of their meeting. She must not count on it, how- ever — she had been disappointed so often that she dreaded the feeling. Ugh! What frightful cold! Mrs. Toomey ran into the house and forgot the incident.

Later in the afternoon Toomey came home in high spirits. "They got in!" he announced. "I hardly thought they'd start, such weather. It's twenty-five below now and getting colder." "Who?" inquired Mrs. Toomey, absently.

"The show people." "Oh, did they?" "Might as well take it in, mightn't we?" in feigned indifference. "How can we? It's a dollar a ticket, isn't it? "

For answer he produced two strips of pink pasteboard from his waistcoat pocket. "Jap? " wonderingly. "Yes'm."

"Where did you get the money?" "I raised it." "But how?"

He hesitated, looking sheepish.

"On the range."

Mrs. Toomey sat down wealdy.

"The cook stove I You mortgaged it? "

"I had to give some security, hadn't I? " he demanded with asperity.