CHAPTER XIV
LIKE ANY OTHER HERDER
The northeast wind lifted Kate's shabby riding skirt and flapped itagainst her horse's flank as she sat in the saddle with field glasses toher eyes looking intently at a covered wagon that was crawling over thesagebrush hummocks, its top swaying at perilous angles. She shiveredunconsciously as the loose ends of her silk neckerchief fluttered andsnapped in front of her and the limp brim of her Stetson blew straightagainst the crown of it.
"There are certainly two of them," she murmured, "and they must be lostor crazy to be wandering through the hills at this season. They hadbetter get back to the road, if they don't want to find themselvessnowed up in a draw until summer."
She replaced the glasses in the case that she wore slung by a strap overher shoulder, and looked behind her. They were undoubtedly snow cloudsthat the wind was driving before it from the distant mountains.
"Good thing I brought my sour-dough," she muttered as she untied thesheepskin-lined canvas coat from the back of her saddle. "We'd bettersift along, Cherokee, and turn the sheep back to the bed-ground."
By the time the sheep had fed slowly back and settled themselves for thenight on the gently sloping side of a draw above the sheep wagon therewas just daylight enough left for her to feed and hobble the horse andcut wood without lighting a lantern. From half a mutton hanging outsideat the back of the wagon she cut enough for her own supper, and fed theyoung collie she was training. Then, she dipped a bucket of water fromthe barrel, made a fire in the tiny camp stove and put on the teakettle. She looked with distaste at a pile of soiled dishes thatremained from Bowers's breakfast, and at the unmade bunk with a grimyflour sack for a pillow case.
"Thank goodness, Bowers will be back to-morrow!"
She swept the untidy floor with a stump of a broom and replaced it inits leather straps outside the wagon. When the water was heated, shewashed the dishes and scoured the greasy frying pan with a bit ofsagebrush, for there was no makeshift of the west with which she was notfamiliar. Then she made biscuits, fried bacon and a potato, and boiledcoffee, eating, when the meal was ready, with the gusto of hunger.
Her hair glistened with flakes as she withdrew her head after openingthe upper half of the door to throw out the dish water later.
"It's coming straight down as though it meant business," she muttered."I'm liable to have to break trail to get them out to feed to-morrow."Then, with a look of anxiety as the thought came to her, "If they ever'piled up' in a draw they're so fat half of them would smother."
While the fire went out she sat thinking what such a loss would mean toher--ruin, literally; and worse, for in addition she had an indebtednessto consider.
"It seems colder." She shivered, and straightening the soiled soogans,she spread her canvas coat over the grimy pillow, pulled off her ridingboots and lay down with her clothes on. Before she fell asleep Kateremembered the eccentric travelers, and again wondered what possiblebusiness could bring them, but mostly she was thinking that she mustnot sleep soundly, although the collie was under the wagon to serve asears for her.
While she slept, the moist featherlike flakes hardened to jaggedcrystals and rattled as they struck the canvas side of the wagon with asound like gravel. The top swayed and loose belts rattled, but insideKate lay motionless, breathing regularly in a profound and dreamlesssleep. Underneath the wagon the dog rolled himself in a tighter ball andwhimpered softly as the temperature lowered.
Exactly as though an unseen hand had shaken her violently, she sat boltupright and listened. Instantly she was aware that the character of thestorm had changed, but it was not that which had aroused her; it was thefaint tinkle of bells which told her that the sheep were leaving thebed-ground. Her alert subconscious mind had conveyed the intelligencebefore even the dog heard and warned her. He now barked violently as shesprang out of bed and groped for the matches.
While she pulled on her boots, and a pair of Bowers's arctics she hadnoticed when sweeping, and slipped on her coat and buttoned it, thetinkle grew louder and she knew that the sheep were passing the wagon.She flung on her hat, snatched up the lantern and opened the door. Thelantern flickered and she gasped when she stepped out on the wagontongue and a blast struck her.
"I'm in for it," she said between her teeth as she ran in the directionof the bells, the dog leaping and barking vociferously beside her.
The wagon disappeared instantly, the blizzard swirled about her and theflickering lantern was only a tiny glowworm in the blackness whichenveloped her. She tripped over buried sagebrush, falling frequently,picking herself up to run on, calling, urging the dog to get ahead andturn the leaders.
"Way 'round 'em, Shep! Way 'round 'em, boy!" she pleaded. But the dog,half-trained and bewildered, ran only a little way, to return and fawnupon her as though apologetic for his uselessness.
There was no thought or fear for herself in her mind as she ran--shethought only of the sheep that were drifting rapidly before the storm,now they were well started, and she could tell by the rocks rolling fromabove her that they were making their way out of the gulch to the flatopen country.
If only she could get ahead and turn them before they split up andscattered she could perhaps hold them until morning. Was it long untilmorning, she wondered? Breathless, exhausted from climbing andfloundering and stumbling, the full fury of the blizzard struck her whenshe reached the top. The driving ice particles stung her skin andeyeballs when she turned to face it, the wind carried her soothing callsfrom her lips as she uttered them, her skirt whipped about her as thoughit would soon be in ribbons, and then with a leap and a flicker theflame went out in the smoke-blackened chimney, leaving her in darkness.
There was a panic-stricken second as she stood, a single human atom inthe howling white death about her but it passed quickly. She dreaded thephysical suffering which experience told her would come when her bodycooled and the wind penetrated her garments, yet there was no feeling ofself-pity. It was all a part of the business and would come to anyherder. The sheep were the chief consideration, and she never doubtedbut that she could endure it somehow until daylight.
"I've got to keep moving or I'll freeze solid," she told herselfpractically, and added between her set teeth with a grim whimsicality:
"Be a man, Kate Prentice! It's part of the price of success and you'vegot to pay it!"
Kate knew that hourly she was getting farther from the wagon as thesheep drifted and she followed. But daylight would bring surcease ofsuffering--she had only to endure and keep moving. So she stamped herfeet and swung her arms, tied her handkerchief over her ears, rubbed herface with snow when absence of feeling told her it was freezing, andprayed for morning. Surely the storm was too severe to be a long one--itwould slacken when daylight came, very likely, and then she couldquickly get her bearings. She thought this over and over, and over andover again monotonously, while somehow the interminable hours of dumbmisery passed.
Daylight! Daylight! And when the first leaden light came she was afraidto believe it. It was faint, just enough to show that somewhere the sunwas shining, yet her chilled blood stirred hopefully. But there was nowarmth in the dawn, the storm did not abate, and at an hour which shejudged to be around nine o'clock she was able to make out only the sheepin her immediate vicinity, snow encrusted, huddled together with headslowered, and drifting, always drifting. She had no notion where she was,and to leave the sheep was to lose them. No, she must have patience andpatience and more patience. At noon it would lighten surely--it nearlyalways did--and she had only to hold out a little longer.
The top of the sagebrush made black dots on the white surface, and therewere comparatively bare places where she dared sit down and rest a fewmoments, but mostly it was drifts now--drifts where she floundered andthe sheep sunk down and stood stupidly until pushed forward by thosebehind them.
Twelve o'clock came and there was no change save that the drifts werehigher and she could see a little farther into the white wilderness.
"Wha
t if--what if--" she gulped, for the thought brought a contractionof the throat muscles that made swallowing difficult. "What if therewere twenty-four more of it!" Could she stand it? She was tired toexhaustion with walking, with the strain of resisting the cold, and theall-night vigil--weak, too, with hunger.
Was she to become another of those that the first chinook uncovered? Oneof the already large army that have paid with their lives in just suchcircumstances for their loyalty, or their bad judgment? After all shehad gone through to reach the goal she had set for herself was she to goout like this--like a common herder who had no thought or ambitionbeyond the debauch when he drew his wages?
When the dimming light told her the afternoon was waning, and thenindications of darkness and another night of torture, despair filledher. Numb, hungry, her vitality at low ebb, she doubted her ability toweather it. Was she being punished, she wondered, for protesting againstthe life the Fates appeared to have mapped out for her? Was this futileinane end coming to her because since that day when she had stoodlooking down upon Prouty and vowed to succeed she had fought andstruggled and struck back, instead of meekly acknowledging herselfcrushed and beaten? Had she shaken her fist at the Almighty in so doing,when she should have bowed her head and folded her hands in resignation?She did not know; in her despair and bewilderment she lost all logic,all perspective; she knew only that in spite of the exhaustion of herbody her spirit was still defiant and protesting.
She spread out her hands in supplication, raising her face to thepitiless sky while needlelike particles stung her eyeballs, and shecried despairingly:
"Oh, Uncle Joe, where are you? Is this the end of me--Katie Prentice? Isthis all I was born for--just to live through heartaches and hardships,and then to drop down and die like an animal without knowing happinessor success or anything I've worked and longed and prayed for? Oh, UncleJoe, where are you?"
The wail that the wind carried over the desert was plaintive, minor,like the cry that had reached him when she sought him in the darkness inthat other crisis. She herself thought of it, but then he had respondedpromptly, and with the sound of his voice there had come a sense ofsafety and security.
She stood motionless thinking of it, the snow beating into her upturnedface, the wind whipping her skirts about her. Then a feeling ofexultation came to her--an exultation that was of the mind and spirit,so tangible that it sent over her a glow that was physical, creepinglike a slow warm tide from her toes to the tips of her numb fingers.Even as she marveled it vanished--a curious trick of the imagination sheregarded it--but it left her with a feeling of courage; inexplicably ithad roused her will to a determination to fight for her life with thelast ounce of her strength, and so long as there was a heart beat in herbody.
The time came, however, when this moment of transport and resolutionseemed so long ago that it was like some misty incident of herchildhood. Her body, as when a jaded horse lashed to a gallop reaches astage where it drops to a walk from which no amount of punishment canrouse it, was refusing to respond to the spur of her will. It became aneffort to walk, to swing her arms and stamp her feet, to make any briskmovement that kept the circulation going. She knew what it portended,yet was unable to make greater resistance against the lethargy of coldand exhaustion.
The dog was still with her, close at her heels, and she pulled off hergauntlets clumsily, the act requiring a tremendous effort of will, andtried to warm her fingers in the long hair of its body; but she felt nosensation of heat and she replaced the gloves with the same effort.
The second night was full upon her now--a night so black that she couldfeel the storm, but not see it. At intervals she experienced a sense ofdetachment--as if she were a disembodied spirit, lonely, buffeted in awhite hell of torture.
Usually the faint tinkle of a sheep bell recalled her, but each time thesound had less meaning for her, and the sheep seemed less and lessimportant. She was staggering, her knees had an absurd fashion of givingway beneath her, but she could not prevent them. She was approaching theend of her endurance; she could not resist much longer--this her dullrambling brain told her over and over. And that curious phenomenon--thatfeeling of confidence and exultation that she had had away back--whenwas it? Long ago, anyhow--that had meant nothing--nothing--meantnothing. The Supreme Intelligence who had made things didn't know sheexisted, probably. Her coming was nothing; her going was nothing. Andnow she was stepping off of something--she was going down hill--downhill--the first gulch she had found in her wanderings. It was full ofdrifts, likely she'd stumble in one and lie there--it was tiresome tokeep going, and it made no difference to anybody. Then she stumbled andfell to the bottom, prone, her arms outstretched, the briars of awild-rose bush tearing her cheek as she lay face downward in the centerof it. But she did not know it--she was comfortable, very comfortable,and she could as well lie there a little while--a little while--
Then somewhere a querulous voice was saying:
"I told you the picture would be overexposed when you were takin' it.You'll never listen to me."
A deeper voice answered:
"The light was stronger than I thought; but, anyway, it's a humdinger ofa negative." Then, sharply, "Sh-ss-sh! What was that, Honey?"
A silence fell instantly.
"Honey!" Kate had a notion that she smiled, though her white face didnot alter its expression. Her tongue moved thickly, "I like that name,Hughie."
Her collie whimpered and scratched again at the door of the wagon. Thetraveling photographer pushed it open and the animal sprang inside,leaping from one to the other in his gratitude.
"It's a sheep dog!" the man cried in consternation. "There's a herderlost somewhere."
"Can we do anything--such a night?" the old woman asked doubtfully. "Cananyone be alive in it?"
"Light the lantern--quick! Maybe I can track the dog back before thesnow fills them. He might be down within a stone's throw of the wagon."Snatching the lantern from her hand he admonished his wife as he steppedout into the wilderness:
"You-all keep hollerin' so I can hear you. I kin git lost mighty easy."
The light became a blur almost instantly, but he was not fifty feet fromthe wagon when he shouted:
"I got him!" Then--his voice shrilled in astonishment--"Sufferin'Saints! It's a woman!"