Page:Caroline Lockhart--The Fighting Shepherdess.djvu/150

THE FIGHTING SHEPHERDESS “This banany belt's gittin' colder every winter." The stranger broke off an icicle and laid it on the stove to hear it sizzle.

" I was jest fixin' to turn in," Teeters hinted. " Last night I didn't sleep good. I tossed and thrashed around until half-past eight 'fore I closed my eyes."

" I won't keep you up, then. I come over on business. Bowers's my name. I'm a-workin' for Miss Prentice. I'm a sheepherder myself by perfession."

Teeters received the announcement with equanimity, so he continued :

" Along about two o'clock this afternoon I got an idea that nigh knocked me over. I bedded my sheep early and took a chance on leavin' them, seein' as it was on her account I wanted to talk to you. You're a friend of her'n, ain't you? "

" To the end of the road," Teeters replied soberly.

Bowers nodded.

" So somebody told me. Are you goin' to town any- ways soon? "

" To-morrow."

" Good 1 Will you take a message to Lingle? "

Teeters assented.

" Tell him for me that the night of the murder there was a onery breed-lookin' feller that smelt like a piece of Injun-tanned buckskin a settin' in Doc Fussel's drug store. He acted oneasy, as I come to think it over, and he went out jest before the killin'. I never thought of it at the time, but he might have been the feller that done it."

" I'll tell Lingle, but I don't think there's anythinir in it."

" Why? "

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