Page:Caroline Lockhart--The Fighting Shepherdess.djvu/214

 Kate drew back her head a little and looked at her visitor.

"Is it?" coolly.

"And Hugh never has told me a word about you—he's been so reticent." She laid her finger tips upon his arm in proprietory fashion while a sly malice shone through the mischievousness of her smile.

Disston colored.

Kate replied ironically:

"Perhaps he is one of those who do not boast of their acquaintance with sheepherders."

"Kate!" he protested vigorously.

She regarded him with a faint inscrutable smile until Bowers interrupted:

"How many bells shall I put on them yearlings?"

"One in fifty; and cut those five wethers out of the ewe herd. Catch those yearling ewes with the wether ear-mark and change to the shoe-string."

"What do you want done with that feller in the pen?"

"Saw his horn off and I'll throw him into the buck herd later."

"Where'll Oleson hold his sheep?"

"Well up the creek; and if he lets them mix again—"

"He says he can't do nothin' without a dog," Bowers ventured.

"Then he'd better quit right now—you can tell him." Kate's voice was curt, incisive, her tone final. "He can't use a dog on these Rambouillets—they're high-strung, nervous, different from the merinos. Anyway, I won't have it." She swung about to indicate that die conversation was ended.

"That's all Greek to me. Do you understand it, Hugh?" Miss Rathburn's lofty drawl, her faintly patronizing manner, all indicated amusement.