Page:Caroline Lockhart--The Fighting Shepherdess.djvu/329

 The perspiration broke out on Bowers's forehead.

" I thought Pd git married, if anybody that looked good to me wcfuld have me."

" You're not happy, Bowers? " she asked gently.

" I ain't sufferin', but I ain't livin' in what you'd call no seventh heaven."

Kate smiled at the grim irony of his tone.

" It's not up to much, this life of ours out here," she agreed in a low voice.

" Nothin' to look forward to — nothin' to look back to," he said bitterly.

" I understand," Kate nodded.

" I never had as much home life as a coyote," he con- tinued with rebellion in his tone. " A coyote does git a den and a family around him every spring." And he added shortly, " I'm lonesome."

They sat in a long silence, Kate with her hands clasped about a knee and looking off at the mountain. She turned to him after a while:

" Do you like me. Bowers? "

" I shore do."

Then she asked with quiet deliberation:

" Well enough to — marry me? "

Bowers looked at her, speechless. He managed finally:

"Are you joshin'?"

" No."

A prairie dog rose up in front of them and chattered. They both stared at him. Bowers reached over and took her gloved fingers between his two palms — in the same fashion a loyal subject might have touched his queen's hand.

"That's a great thing you said to me, Miss Kate. I never expected any such honor ever to cotcvfc a snr..