"HEART AND HAND"
"Come in, Bowers." Kate looked up from the market report she was reading
as her trusted lieutenant scraped his feet on the soap box which did
duty as a step to the tongue of the sheep wagon.
After a final glance at the report, during which Bowers eyed the mail
sack with interest, she folded the sheet and turned to him inquiringly.
"I wisht you'd order some turpentine--'bout two quarts of it," he said.
"What do you want with so much?" She reached for a pad and pencil to
make a note.
"Ticks. I never seen the beat of 'em. I bet I picked a thousand off me
a'ready this season. They ain't satisfied with grabbin' me from a
sagebrush as I go by, but when they gits wind of me they trails me up
and jumps me. All the herders is complainin'."
"How's the new herder doing?"
Bowers's face clouded. "Dibert's havin' trouble with Neifkins's
herder--says the feller does most of his herdin' in the wagon, and there
would a been a 'mix' a dozen times if he hadn't been with his sheep
every minute. Dibert says it looks to him like the feller's doin' it on
purpose."
"I don't know but what I'd rather have it that way than for them to be
too friendly. More 'mixes' come from herders visiting than any other
cause, and I wouldn't run that band through the chutes for three hundred
dollars. 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:
"I think I'll 'cut' for a hard winter. You know my motto, 'Better be
sure than sorry.'"
"I wouldn't be surprised if 'twan't a humdinger--last winter was so
open. I think we'd be safer if we ship everything that's fat enough."
Bowers always said "we" when he spoke of the Outfit, though he was still
only a camptender working for wages.
Kate relied upon him to keep her informed of the details of the
business, which she had less time than formerly to look after
personally. His judgment was sometimes at fault, but she trusted his
honesty implicitly and, though she gave him little of her confidence, it
was so much more than she gave to any other person that he was flattered
by it.
"Guess what that Boston woolbuyer is offering me?" She tapped a letter.
"No idee."
"Twenty-six cents."
Bowers whistled.
"Gosh a'mighty! You're goin' to take it, ain't you?"
"I'll get a quarter more, if I hold out for it."
His face fell a little.
"I'll get it!" Her voice had a metallic quality. "It's a fine long
staple, and clean. If he won't, some one else will give it to me."
The sheep woman had the reputation now of being difficult to deal with,
of haggling over fractions, and it was of this that Bowers was thinking.
To others he would never admit that she was anything but perfect, though
to himself he acknowledged the hardening process that was going on in
her. He saw the growth of the driving ambition which made her
indifferent to everything that did not tend to her personal interest.
Outside of himself and Teeters, Kate took no interest whatever in
individuals. There was no human note in her intercourse with those who
worked for her. She cared for results only, and showed it.
They resented her appraising eyes, her cold censure when they blundered,
her indifference to them as human beings, and they revenged themselves
in the many ways that lie in a herder's power if he cares to do so.
They gave away to the dry-farmers in the vicinity the supplies and
halves of mutton she furnished them. In the lambing season they left the
lambs whose mothers refused to own them to die when a little extra
effort would have saved them. When stragglers split off from the herd
they made no great attempt to recover them. They shot at coyotes and
wildcats when it was convenient, but did not go out of their way to hunt
them.
She was just but not generous. She never had spared herself, and she did
not spare her herders. "Hard as nails" was the verdict in general. In
her presence they were taciturn to sullenness; among themselves they
criticised her constantly, exaggerating her faults and taking delight in
recounting her failures. She was too familiar with every detail of the
business for her men to dare to neglect her interests too flagrantly,
but they had learned to a nicety how high their percentage of losses
might run without getting their "time" for it.
Bowers knew of this silent hostility, which was so unnecessary, but he
dared not speak of it. He could only deny that she had faults and resent
it with violence when the criticisms become too objectionable.
If Kate had known of the antagonism, it would have made no
difference--she would rather have taken the losses it entailed than to
conciliate. She would have argued that if she was harsh, imperious, it
was her privilege--she had earned it.
Life for Kate had resolved itself into an unromantic routine--like
extracting the last penny for her wool that was possible, shipping on
favorable markets, acquiring advantageous leases, discharging incapable
herders and hiring others, eliminating waste and unnecessary
expenditures, studying range conditions against hard winters.
"Any mail for the herders?" Bowers asked, innocently, since she showed
no disposition to give him her confidence farther.
He watched her intently as she sorted the mail, tossing him a paper
finally from which he removed the wrapper with a certain eagerness. He
peered into it with a secrecy that attracted her attention, and, looking
at it hard, Kate recognized it as the publication of a matrimonial
agency.
"Bowers, you surprise me!" She regarded him quizzically.
Bowers started guiltily.
"Aw--it's one they sent me," he said disparagingly--"jest a sample
copy."
"Bowers, I think you're lying," she accused him good-humoredly. "Tell me
the truth--didn't you send for it?"
He squirmed and colored.
"I did write to 'em--out of cur'osity."
"Don't forget that married men are not hired into this Outfit," she
reminded him, smiling. "I'd be sorry to lose you."
"Gosh a'mighty!" he protested vigorously. "I ain't no use fer women!"
The subject seemed to interest him, however, for he continued with
animation:
"They's always somethin' about 'em I don't like when I git to know 'em.
I've knowed several real well--six or eight, altogether, countin' two
that run restauraws and one that done my warshin'. I got a kind o'
cur'osity about 'em, but I don't take no personal interest in 'em.
Why--Gosh--a'mighty--"
Bowers nearly kicked the stove over in his embarrassed denial.
Kate looked after him speculatively as he made his escape in a relief
that was rather obvious. His protests had been too vehement to be
convincing. Was he growing discontented? Didn't her friendship satisfy
him any longer?
There was something of the patient trust of a sheepdog in Bowers's
fidelity. "The queen can do no wrong," was his attitude. Kate was so
accustomed to his devotion and admiration that it gave her a twinge to
think of sharing it.
She called after him as he was leaving:
"If you meet that freighter, tell him for me he'll get his check if he
gets in again as early as he did last trip. I won't have a horse left
with a sound pair of shoulders."
"And I fergot to tell you that somebody's 'salted' over in Burnt Basin,"
he answered, turning back. "There's a hunerd head o' cattle eatin' off
the feed there. We'll need that, later."
"Tsch! tsch!" Kate frowned her annoyance at the information.
"Be sure and warn Neifkins's herder as soon as you can get around to
it," she reminded him.
"You bet!" Bowers responded cheerfully, and went on.
Yes, she certainly would miss Bowers if anything happened that he left
her, she thought as she turned inside to her market report and her
letters.
It was days, however, before Bowers found the opportunity to go to
Dibert's camp with supplies and incidentally warn Neifkins's herder, if
he was still crowding. Now as he jolted towards the fluttering rag,
thrust in a pile of rocks to mark the location of Dibert's sheep-wagon,
his thoughts, for once, were not of sheep or anything pertaining to
them. He was, forsooth, composing for the matrimonial paper an
advertisement which should be sufficiently attractive to draw a few
answers without making himself in any way liable. He thought he might
with safety say that he was a single gentleman, crowding forty,
interested in the sheep industry, who would be pleased to correspond
with a plump blonde of about thirty. He would not go so far as to say
that his object was matrimony, since, of course, it was not, and the
declaration might somehow prove incriminating. The Denver _Post_ was
full of suits for breach of promise and it behooved him to be wary.
Bowers felt like a fox, at the adroit wording of the advertisement, and
chuckled at his cunning. He would notify the postmaster in Prouty to
hold out his mail for him and thus escape further "joshing" from Kate,
who would be sure to observe letters addressed to him in feminine
writing.
The matrimonial paper had proved to be in the nature of a debauch to
Bowers, who had worn it to tatters poring over its columns. The "petite
blondes" and "dashing brunettes" who enumerated their charms without any
noticeable lack of modesty furnished food for his imagination. He
selected brides, as the description pleased him, with the prodigal
abandon of a sultan.
However, the idea of an advertisement of his own, dismissed promptly at
first, grew upon him. The thought of getting something in the mail
besides a catalogue and the speeches of his congressman, of having
something actually to look forward to, appealed to him strongly the
more he considered it. Bowers craved a little of the warmth of romance
in his drab existence and this was the only way he knew of obtaining it.
Smiling at the brash act he contemplated, Bowers threw the brake
mechanically as the front wheels of the wagon sank into a chuck-hole and
the jolt all but landed him on the broad rump of Old Peter.
As he raised his eyes he saw a sight charged with significance to one
familiar with it.
Neifkins's sheep were coming down the side of the mountain like a woolly
avalanche. In the shape of a wedge with a leader at the point of it,
they were running with a definite purpose and as though all the dogs in
sheepdom were heeling them. The very thing against which he had come to
warn the herders was about to happen--the band was making straight for
Dibert's sheep, which were still feeding peacefully on the hillside.
With an imprecation that was not flattering to either herder, Bowers
wrapped the lines around the brake and leaped over the wheel to head
them if it were possible. But they seemed possessed by all the imps of
Satan, as they came on bleating, hurdling boulders, letting out another
link of speed at Bowers's frantic shoutings.
The leaders of the two bands were not fifty feet apart when Bowers,
realizing he could not get between them, reached for a rock with a faint
hope that he might hit what he aimed for. His prayer was answered, for
the ewe in the lead of Neifkins's band blinked and staggered as the rock
bounced on her forehead. With a surprised bleat she turned and started
back up the mountain, the rest of the band following.
The perspiration was streaming from under Bowers's hat as his eyes
searched the surrounding country. Not a sign of either herder! A cactus
thorn that had penetrated his shoe leather did not improve Bowers's
temper. As he sat down to extract it, he considered whether it would be
advisable to pound Dibert to a jelly when he found him or wait until
they got a herder to replace him.
The man's horse and saddle were missing in camp, Bowers discovered, so
it was fairly safe to assume that he was over visiting Neifkins's
herder.
After Bowers had brought the supply wagon up and unloaded, he secured
the horses and started on foot up the mountain.
From the summit he could see the white canvas top of Neifkins's wagon
gleaming among the quaking asp well down the other slope of the
mountain. No one was visible, but as he got closer he saw Dibert's horse
tied to the wheel. Bowers felt "hos-tile."
"What you doin' here?" he demanded unceremoniously, as Dibert, hearing
the rocks rattle, all but tumbled out of the wagon in his eagerness.
"I never was so tickled to see anybody in my life!" he cried.
"I'm about as pleased to see you as a stepmother welcomin' home the
first wife's children," Bowers replied, eyeing him coldly. "You ain't
answered my question."
The herder nodded towards the wagon:
"He's come down with somethin'. Clean off"--he touched his forehead--"I
dassn't leave him."
Bowers immediately went into the wagon, where, after a look at the man
mumbling on the bunk, he said laconically:
"Tick bite."
The brown blotches, flushed forehead, and burning eyes told their own
story.
As Bowers continued to look at the sick man, with his unshaven face and
mop of oily black hair, so long that it was beginning to curl, Dibert
commented:
"He ain't what you'd call pretty--I've no idee he has to keep a rock
handy to stone off the ladies."
But Bowers was searching his mind in the endeavor to recall where he had
seen those curious eyes with the muddy blue-gray iris. It came to him so
suddenly that he shouted it:
"I know him! It's the feller that blowed up my wagon! It's the--that
killed Mary!"