Page:Caroline Lockhart--The Fighting Shepherdess.djvu/18

 clear that Kate's wide, thoughtful eyes, generous mouth and softly curving but firm chin came from the other side, as did her height. Already she was half a head taller than the short, wiry, tough-fibered woman with the small hard features who was known throughout the southern half of Wyoming as "Jezebel of the Sand Coulee."

A long flat braid of fair hair swung below the girl's waist and on her cheeks a warm red showed through the golden tan. Her slim straight figure was eloquent of suppleness and strength and her movements, quick, purposeful, showed decision and activity of mind. They were as characteristic as her directness of speech.

The Sand Coulee Roadhouse was a notorious place. The woman who kept it called herself Isabel Bain—Bain having been the name of one of the numerous husbands from whom she had separated to remarry in another state, without the formality of a divorce. She was noted not only for her remarkable horsemanship, but for her exceptional handiness with a rope and branding iron, and her inability to distinguish her neighbors' livestock from her own.

"Pete Mullendore's gettin' in." There was a frown on Kate's face as she spoke and uneasiness in the glance she sent toward the string of pack-horses filing along the fence.

The woman said warningly, "Don't you pull off any of your tantrums—you treat him right."

"I'll treat him right," hotly, "as long as he behaves himself. Mother," with entreaty in her voice, "won't you settle him if he gets fresh?"

Jezebel only laughed and as the gate of the corral scraped when Mullendore pulled it open to herd a saddle horse and pack ponies through, she called out in her harsh croak: