The Fighting Shepherdess Part 6

The purpose of the meeting was to consider ways and means to build a ditch that should bring water from the mountains in sufficient quant.i.ty not only to supply the town but to irrigate the agricultural land surrounding it.

Mr. Abram Pantin, a man of affairs from Keokuk, Iowa, in the vicinity with a view to locating, had been called upon for a few remarks and was just closing with the safe and conservative statement that an ample water supply was an a.s.set to any community.

He was followed by the chairman, Mr. Butefish, who pleaded eloquently for the construction of the ditch by local capital, and having aroused the meeting to a high pitch of enthusiasm ended with a peroration that brought forth a loud demonstration of approbation.

"Gentlemen," declared Mr. Butefish, "back there in the mountains is a n.o.ble stream waitin' to irrigate a thirsty land. For the trifling sum of twenty thousand dollars we can turn this hull country into a garden spot! The time is comin' when we'll see nothin' but alfalfa field in purple bloom as fur as the eye can reach! We're as rich in natural resources as any section on G.o.d's green earth. We're lousy with 'em, gentlemen, and all we gotta do is to put our shoulders to the wheel and scratch!"

Mr. Butefish sat down and dried the inside of his collar with his handkerchief midst tumultuous applause.

The evening had been a veritable love-feast without a jarring note and everybody glowed with a feeling of neighborliness and confidence in a future that was to bring them affluence.

"Mr. Chairman, may I have a word?"

There was a general turning of heads as Mormon Joe, thick of tongue, lurched over the back of the seat in front.

"Kindly make it brief," replied Mr. Butefish reluctantly. "We still have important business to transact."

"I only want to say that this country hasn't any more natural resources than a tin roof and when Prouty got any bigger than a saloon and a blacksmith shop it overreached itself." There was a tightening of lips as the members exchanged looks, but Mormon Joe went on, "One third of the work that you dry farmers put in trying to make ranches out of arid land," he addressed a row of tousled gentlemen on the front seat, "would bring you independence in a state where climatic conditions are favorable to raising crops.

"As for your ditch, there never was an irrigation project yet that did not cost double and treble the original estimate. If you try to put it through without outside help, you'll all go broke. In other words," he jeered, "you haven't one d.a.m.ned a.s.set but your climate, and you're wasting your time and energy until you figure out a way to realize on that."

Shabby, undersized, distinctly drunk, Mormon Joe made an unheroic figure as he stood swaying on his feet looking mockingly into the frowning faces of the Boosters Club, and yet, somehow, his words cast a momentary depression over the room.

He stood an instant, then staggered out, indifferent to the fact that he had committed the supreme offense in a western town--he had "knocked"--and that henceforth and forever he was a marked man--a detriment to the community--to be discredited, shunned, and, if possible, driven out.

The invitation composed and printed by Mr. Butefish after much mental travail, requesting the pleasure of the Toomeys' company at a reception and dance in the Prouty House to celebrate the third year of the town's prosperity and progress was one of the results of this meeting of the Boosters Club.

Toomey's thin lips curled superciliously as he glanced at it and tossed it across the breakfast table:

"Here, Hughie, why don't you take this in?"

"You'll go, won't you?" the lad asked eagerly after reading it.

"We never mingle socially with the natives." As Mrs. Toomey shook her head her smile and tone expressed ineffable exclusiveness. Seeing that the boy's face fell in disappointment she urged, "But you go, Hughie."

"If I knew some one to ask--"

"There's Maggie Taylor," Mrs. Toomey suggested.

"And Mormon Joe's Kate," Toomey added, laughing.

"Who's she?" the boy asked curiously.

"Do you remember the day when you were here before that we met those people driving a band of sheep--a man and a barefooted girl in overalls?"

Hughie's eyes sparkled:

"They stopped here, then?"

Toomey scowled.

"Yes, confound 'em! I've had more than one 'run in' with 'em since over range and water. But," he urged, "don't let that hinder you. They live with their sheep back there in the foothills like a couple of white savages, and she's some greener than alfalfa. Go and ask her. You'll get some fun out of it. I dare you! I'll bet you a saddle blanket against anything you like that you haven't got the sand to take her."

"Done!" Hughie Disston's eyes were dancing. "If my nerve fails me when I see her, you are in a new Navajo."

It was a great lark to Disston, now a tall boy of nineteen, handsome, attractive, with the soft drawl of his southern speech and the easy manners of those who have a.s.sociated much with women-folk. He was in high spirits as, one morning early, he and Teeters turned off from the main road and took the faint trail which led up Bitter Creek.

They rode until they saw two tepees showing white through the willows.

"We're in luck to catch them home at this hour," said Teeters, as they heard a faint tinkle from the corrals on the other side of the creek.

"They've got the sheep inside--must be cuttin' out. Yes," as they forded and drew closer, "there's Kate at the dodge gate."

The corral was a crude affair, built at the minimum of expense, of crooked cottonwood poles, willow sticks and brush interlaced. It was divided into three sections, with a chute running from the larger division into two smaller ones.

Kate was standing at the "dodge gate" at the end of the chute separating the sheep as they came through by throwing the gate to and fro, thus sending each into the division in which it belonged. It was work which required intense concentration, a trained eye and quick brain, and even Disston and Teeters, who knew nothing of sheep, could appreciate the remarkable skill with which the girl performed the task.

"Let 'em come, Uncle Joe!" she called in her clear confident voice.

Mormon Joe flapped a grain sack over the backs of the sheep and having started a leader the rest went through the chute on the run.

When the last one was through Kate's aching arm dropped limply to her side and she called in a tired but jubilant voice:

"I don't believe I've made a single mistake this time."

Mormon Joe's expression was not too friendly when he saw strangers but it changed upon recognizing Teeters.

"Maybe you don't remember this here gent," said that person, indicating Disston with his thumb after he and Mormon Joe had shaken hands. "He's growed about four feet since you saw him."

"I remember him very well." Mormon Joe's tone and manner had the suavity and polish which was so at variance with his general appearance.

Hughie, leaving Teeters and Mormon Joe to a conversation which did not interest him, rode up to see Kate at closer range.

Busy in one of the pens, the girl was still unaware of visitors, so he had had ample opportunity to observe her before she saw him.

She, too, had grown since their meeting, being now as tall and straight and slim as an Olympian runner. Her hair swung in a thick fair braid far below her waist as she darted hither and thither in pursuit of a lamb.

The man's blue flannel s.h.i.+rt she wore was faded and the ragged sleeves had been cut off at the elbow for convenience. Her short skirt was of stiff blue denim and a pair of coa.r.s.e brown and white cotton stockings showed between the hem and the tops of boys' shoes which disguised the slenderness of her feet. Yet, withal, she was graceful as she ran and somehow managed to look picturesque.

The boy's face was an odd mixture of expressions as he watched her--amus.e.m.e.nt, astonishment, disapproval, and grudging admiration all in one.

Finally, catching the lamb by the hind leg she threw it by a twist acquired through much practice and buckled a bell around its neck.

As she turned it loose and straightened up, she saw Disston. When he smiled she knew him instantly and the color rose in her face as she walked towards him, suddenly conscious of her clothes and grimy hands.

She was soon at her ease, however, and when he told her his errand the radiance that leaped into her face startled him.

"Would I like to go?" she cried joyously. "There's nothing I can think of that I would like better. I've never been to a dance in all my life.

I've never been anywhere. It's so good of you to ask me!"

"It's good of you to go with me," he said awkwardly, shamed by her grat.i.tude, remembering the wager.