Page:Caroline Lockhart--The Fighting Shepherdess.djvu/230

 you know what I'm sayin'. You're some sheep, Mary, an' if you jest stick 'round with me till you're growed I'll make a man of you. How'd you like a cigarette?"

"Ma-a-aa-aa!" Bowers chuckled.

"Wait till I have my smoke an' then you kin have yourn, young feller."

He rolled and smoked half a cigarette while the lamb stood looking up into his face wistfully.

"I'll jest knock the fire out fer you first, then you kin have your whack out of it."

He shook the tobacco from the paper into his hand and the lamb ate it to the last fleck with gusto.

Bowers cried gleefully:

"You're a reg'lar roughneck, Mary! Doggone you! As you might say—you ain't no lady!"

The herder laughed aloud at his witticism and might have rambled on for some time longer if the crashing of brush had not attracted his attention. A man on horseback was picking his way through the quaking asp and Bowers awaited his approach with keen interest.

"How are you?" the stranger nodded.

"Won't you git off?"

Bowers strained his eyes to read the brand on the shoulder of the horse the man turned loose, but it told him nothing. While the stranger squatted on his heel, Bowers rubbed Mary's horns during an interval of unembarrassed silence.

"Bum?" inquired the stranger, eying Mary with a look which could not be called admiring.

"Yep." The garrulous Bowers had become suddenly reticent. The notion was growing that he did not like his visitor. He asked finally: