Page:Caroline Lockhart--The Fighting Shepherdess.djvu/94

 "I've ridden over forty miles since morning," she centered, while he flung the snow flakes from his hat brim brushed them from his shoulders. "The wind blew horses" tracks out so I couldn't follow them. I m caught sight of them until just this side of Prouty. can sit down, Uncle Joe everything's ready."

They talked of the coming snowstorm, and the accountability of holding the sheep on the bedground if it should be a bad one ; of the trip to town that he was contemplating; of the coyote that was bothering and the possibility of trapping him. There was no dearth of topics of actual interest. Nevertheless, Mormon Joe knew that was holding something in reserve and wondered at reticence. It came finally when they had finished and lingered at the table.

"Who do you suppose I met today when I was h ing horses? " "Teeters?" Mormon Joe was tearing a leaf f his book of cigarette papers. "Guess again." He shook his head. "Can't imagine." She announced impressively: "Mrs. Toomey!"

He was distributing tobacco from the sack upon increase in the paper with exactitude. He made no comment, so Kate said with increased emphasis : "She was crying!" Still he was silent, and she demanded : " Aren't you surprised?" She looked crestfallen, so he asked obligingly:" Where did all of this happen?"

" In a draw a couple of miles this side of Prouty, when I found the horses. They had gone there to get out