Page:Caroline Lockhart--The Fighting Shepherdess.djvu/347

 " Looks like you knew what you was talkin' about when you said I'd know who you was before you left Omaha."

Sitting on the edge of her bed Kate read the article again, but her first feeling of elation did not return. With her hands clasped about one knee, in her characteristic attitude, she stared at a festoon of dusty cobwebs hanging from the ceiling, and there gradually crept over her a feeling of lassitude.

She had established a record price with the best train load of range sheep that ever had come into the stockyards; she had been accepted as an equal in achievement and intelligence by every one of the worthwhile men with whom she had come in contact; and as a climax to the day's events she was proclaimed a successful woman in the public prints. Yet, in the silence of the cheerless room, she was cognizant of the fact that nothing inside of her was changed thereby. There remained in her heart the same dreary emptiness.

Two tears slipped slowly down her cheeks. She brushed them away with the back of her hand, looked at her watch, and got up. She had no appetite, but ordering food in a restaurant would help the time to pass. After rubbing such mud as she could from her boots, she smoothed her hair before the mirror and put on her hat. The sheep woman was the cynosure of the respectful gaze of many eyes as she came down the stairs.

Outside all the world was going home with eager, hurrying feet and she paused, looking indifferently up and down the street. The nearest restaurant was not inviting, but it answered well enough. After a few mouthfuls, Kate crumpled the paper napkin, paid her bill, and walked dispiritedly back to the hotel.

More often than not, the momentous happenings in life come without warning, and with no stage-setting to