She walked to the gate and vaulted it easily. Hughie and Beth could do no less than follow as far as the fence, while Kate stood searching the band of sheep that milled about her. When she found what she sought, she made one of her swift swoops, caught the sheep by the hind leg and threw it with a dextrous twist. Then holding it between her knees, she took a knife from her pocket and tested the edge of the blade with her thumb.
The girl at the fence cried aghast: "Oh, what's she going to do?" Then she clutched Disston's arm and stared in fascinated horror while Kate ear-marked the sheep and released it.
"She's barbarous--horrible--impossible!"
"You brought it on yourself, Beth," he reminded her in a low tone. "You--goaded her," "And you defend her?" she demanded, furiously. "Take me away from here--I'm nauseated!"
"I'll say good-bye--you go on, and I'll join you."
He vaulted the fence and went up to Kate, who was going on with her work and ignoring them.
"Kate," he put out his hand, "I'm sorry."
She disregarded it and turned upon him, her eyes blazing: "Don't you bring any more velvet-pawed kittens here to sharpen their claws in me!"
"Kate," earnestly, "I wouldn't have been the means of hurting you for anything I can think of."
"I'm not hurt," she retorted, "I'm mad."
"I'm coming to see you again--alone, next time. I want to know why you did not answer my letters--I want to know lots of things--why you're so different--what has changed you so much."
"And you imagine I'll tell you?" she asked dryly.
"You wouldn't?"
She shrugged a shoulder. "I don't babble any longer."
"It's nothing to you whether I come or not?"
"I'm very busy."
He looked at her for a moment in silence, then he held out his hand once more.
"I am disappointed in you!"
"Are you, Hughie?" she said indifferently, as she took his hand without warmth.
"Bowers!" Her tone was energetic and businesslike as she turned sharply. "Come here and help me earmark the rest of these yearlings."
Disston stood for a moment, feeling himself dismissed and already forgotten, yet conscious with a rush of emotion which startled him, that in spite of the fact that her dress, speech, manner, occupation, mode of life violated every ideal and tradition, she appealed to him powerfully, stirred him as had no other woman. She aroused within him an enveloping tenderness--a desire to protect her--though she seemed the last woman who needed or cared for either.
When Oleson with the ewes and lambs was well up the creek, Kate gave Bunch his parting instructions: "Let them spread out more. You Montana herders feed too close--it's a fault with all of you. Can't you see the grass is different here? Use your head a little. Got plenty of cartridges? I saw cat tracks in a patch of sand along the creek yesterday. He got eight lambs in his last raid on Oleson's band. I'll have to put out some poison."