Page:Caroline Lockhart--The Fighting Shepherdess.djvu/23

 THE SAND COULEE ROADHOUSE

" I can always pick 'em out. Nearly all the freighters and cow punchers that stop here get drunk."

He looked at her quizzically.

" The trapper you were playing tag with when I came looks as if he might be ugly when he'd had too much."

He was startled by the intensity of the expression which came over her face as she said, between her clenched teeth:

" I hate that breed ! "

" He isn't just the pardner," dryly, " that I'd select for a long camping trip."

Her pupils dilated and she lowered her voice :

" He's ornery — Pete Mullendore."

As though in response to his name, that person came around the corner with his bent-kneed slouch, giving to the girl as he passed a look so malignant, and holding so un- mistakable a threat, that it chilled and sobered the stranger who stood leaning against the water barrel. The girl returned it with a stare of brave defiance, but her hand trembled as she returned the dipper to its nail. She looked at him wistfully, and with a note of entreaty in her voice asked:

" Why don't you camp here to-night, Mister? "

The sheepherder shook his head.

" I've got to get on to the next water hole. I have five hundred head of ewes in the road and they haven't had a drink for two days. They're* getting hard to hold."

Kate volunteered :

" You've about a mile and a half to go."

" Yes, I know. Well — s'long, and good luck ! " He reached for his sheepherder's staff and once more raised his hat with a manner which spoke of another environ-ment. Before he turned the corner of the house an im-pulse prompted him to look back. Involuntarily he all but

7