Page:Caroline Lockhart--The Fighting Shepherdess.djvu/219

 at her as though she were some curious alien creature with whom she had nothing at all in common! And Hughie had said he was disappointed in her.

This was Katie Prentice, she said to herself—Katie Prentice for whom the future, to which she had looked forward eagerly, had been another word for happiness—the Katie Prentice who had tripped in and out of that air castle of her building, looking like this girl that Hugh had brought with him. Now this image was the realization!

Just for the fraction of a second the corners of her mouth twitched, her chin quivered—then she raised it defiantly:

"To do what you set out to do—that's the great thing. Nothing else matters."

She slammed the door behind her and untied her horse from the wagon wheel.

"Come on, Cherokee, we'll go and see what that Nebraskan's doing."

The Nebraskan was standing on a hilltop when she first saw him, facing the east and as motionless as the monument of stones beside him. His sheep were nowhere visible.

As Kate rode closer the same glance that disclosed the band of sheep showed her a coyote creeping down the side of a draw in which they were feeding. She reached instantly for her carbine and drew it from its scabbard, but she was not quick enough to shoot it before it had jumped for the lamb it had been stalking. The coyote missed his prey, but the lamb, which had been feeding a little apart from the others, ran into the herd with a terrified bleat and the whole band fled on a common impulse.

The coyote followed the lamb it had singled out,