Page:Caroline Lockhart--The Fighting Shepherdess.djvu/20



" A whole lot my mother would mind what you say! " Yet in spite of her defiance a look of fear crossed the girl's face. She slipped her arm through the harness and started towards the shed, Mullendore following with his slouching walk, an unprepossessing figure in his faded overalls, black and white mackinaw coat and woolen cap.

The trapper was tall and lank, with a pair of curious, unforgettable eyes looking out from a swarthy face that told of Indian blood. They were round rather than the oblong shape to be expected in his type, and the iris a muddy blue-gray. The effect was indescribably queer, and was accentuated by the coal-black lashes and straight black brows which met above a rather thick nose. He had a low forehead, and when he grinned his teeth gleamed like ivory in his dark face. He boasted of Apache-Mexican blood *' with a streak of white."

While Kate hung the harness on its peg, Mullendore waited for her outside. " My ! My I Katie," he leered at her as she came back, *' but you're gettin' to be a big girl I Them legs looked like a couple of pitchfork handles when I went away, and now the shape they've got ! "

He laughed in malicious enjoyment as he saw the color rise to the roots of her hair; and when she would have passed, reached out and grasped her arm.

" Let me be, Pete Mullendore ! " She tried to pull loose.

"When you've give me a kiss." There was a flame in the muddy eyes.

With a twist she freed herself and cried with fury vibrating in her voice, " I hate you — I hate you ! You — " she sought for a sufficiently opprobrious word — "nigger!"