Page:Caroline Lockhart--The Fighting Shepherdess.djvu/24

 stopped. Her eyes had in them a despairing look that seemed a direct appeal for help. But he smiled at her,touched his hat brim and went on. The girl's look haunted him as he trudged along the road in the thick white dust kicked up by the tiny hoofs of the moving sheep.

"She's afraid of that 'breed,'" he thought, and tried to find comfort in telling himself that there was no occasion for alarm, with her mother, hardvisaged as she was, within call. Yet as unconsciously he kept glancing back at the lonely roadhouse, sprawling squat and ugly on the desolate sweep of sand and sagebrush, the only sign of human habitation within the circle of the wide horizon, he had the same sinking feeling at the heart which came to him when he had to stand helpless watching a coyote pull down a lamb. It was in vain he argued that there was nothing to do but what he had done go on and mind his own business for the child's despairing, reproachful eyes followed him and his uneasiness remained with him after he had reached the water hole. While the sheep grazed after drinking he pulled the pack from the burro that carried his belongings. From among the folds of a little tepee tent he took out a marred violin case and laid it carefully on the ground, apart. A couple of cow hide paniers contained his meager food supply and blackened cooking utensils. These, with two army blankets, some extra clothing and a bell for the burro, completed his outfit.

The sheep dog lay with his head on his paws, following every movement with loving eyes.

The sheepherder scraped a smooth place with the side of his foot, set up his tepee and spread the blankets inside. Then he built a tiny sagebrush fire, filled his battered coffee pot at the spring in the "draw," threw in a small handful of coffee, and, when the sagebrush was burned to coals,