Page:Caroline Lockhart--The Fighting Shepherdess.djvu/270



.It would take that much fat off of them, to say nothing of the bother. Who is Neifkins's herder?"

"I ain't seen him. Dibert says he's an o'nery looker."

"Next time you go over, notify him that he's to herd lines closer. If he keeps on crowding, I'll take a dog and set his sheep back where they belong so they won't forget it. You can tell him. You think Dibert's all right, do you?"

"Well," Bowers replied judicially, "he's one of these fellers that would fight like hell fer his sheep one day, and the next, if you brought him prunes instead of the aprycots he'd ordered, he'd turn 'em loose to the coyotes to git hunks with you. He's all right, only he's crazy."

Kate shrugged a shoulder.

"Is there much water-hemlock in the gulch this summer?"

"Quite a bit of it—it's spreadin'. Neifkins has lost several sheep a'ready by poison, but it's careless herdin'."

"I should own that section," Kate commented. "It's public land. I could have it put up at auction and buy it in, but I suppose they'd run the price up on me just to make me pay for it. How are Svenson's lambs doing?"

"They're so fat they can't play—and Woods's got twenty-five hundred of the best wethers that ever blatted!"

Kate's eyes sparkled.

"I'm going to be a real Sheep Queen, Bowers, if wool and mutton keep climbing. The price of wool is the highest in its history."

Bowers looked at her in mute admiration. He was always loyal, but when she was sociable and friendly like this he adored her. Alas, however, the times when she was so were yearly growing rarer.

Kate went on tentatively: