CHAPTER XVIII
A WARNING
"I can't hold dem ewes and lambs on de bed-ground no more! Dey know it'stime to be gettin' up to deir summer range; nobody has to tell a sheepwhen to move on."
The Swede swirled his little round hat on his equally round little headand winked rapidly as he gave vent to his indignant protest. Kate lookedat him in silence for a moment and then said in sudden decision:
"You can start to-morrow, Oleson."
The early summer was fulfilling the promise of a hot rainless spring.Bitter Creek was drying up rapidly and the water holes, stagnant andstrongly alkaline, had already poisoned a few sheep. The herders couldnot understand the sheep woman's delay in moving to the mountains.
"I'm runnin' myself ragged over these hills tryin' to hold back themyearlin's," Bunch declared. Bowers, too, having his own special brand ofgrief with the buck herd, had looked the interrogation he had notvoiced. Kate herself knew that the sheep should have been higher up,away from the ticks and flies and on good food and water all of twoweeks ago, but, on one pretext or another, had postponed giving theorder to start, though she knew in her heart that the real reason wasbecause Disston had said he was coming again.
Now she told herself contemptuously that she was no different from thehomesick Nebraskan, and, having made up her mind, lost no time in givingeach herder his instructions as to when and where to move his sheep.
Kate never paid wages for anything that she could do herself, so themorning after her decision to start for the mountains she was in thesaddle and leading two work horses on the way to move Oleson's andBowers's camps before the sun was up.
The two sheep wagons were a considerable distance apart and the roadover the broken country to the spot where Kate wished Oleson to make hisfirst camp was a rough one, therefore it was late in the afternoon whenKate reached Bowers's camp--too late to pull the wagon toward themountains that night.
She pulled the harness from the tired horses, slipped on their nose bagswith their allowance of oats, and, when they had finished, hobbled andturned them loose to graze in the wide gulch where the wagon stood. Thenshe warmed up a few pieces of fried mutton--and this, with a piece ofbaking-powder bread and a cup of water from the rivulet that trickledthrough the gulch, constituted her frugal supper.
While driving the sheep wagon it had required all her attention to throwthe brake to keep the wagon off the horses' heels, and release it asquickly, to select the best of a precarious road and maintain thewagon's equilibrium, but immediately the strain was over and her mindfree to ramble, her thoughts reverted at once to Disston, in spite ofher efforts to direct them elsewhere.
Activity is the recognized panacea for a heavy heart, and efficaciouswhile it lasts, but with a lull it makes itself felt like the return ofpain through a dying opiate; and so it was with Kate as she laywide-eyed on the bunk to-night with both the door and window open,while a warm wind, faintly scented with the wild peas that purpled theside of the gulch, blew across her face.
The rivulet gurgled under the overhanging willows and alder brush. Abelated kildeer broke the night stillness with its cry. The hobblesclanked as the horses thumped their fore feet in working their wayslowly to the top of the gulch. Bowers fired his evening salute beforeretiring as a hint to the coyotes, and, sometimes, when the wind veered,a far-off tinkle as a bell-sheep stirred on the bed-ground came toKate's ears--all were familiar sounds, so familiar that she heard themonly subconsciously. In the same way she saw the dark outlines ofobjects inside the sheep wagon--the turkey-wing duster thrust between anoak bow and the canvas, the outline of the coffee pot on the stove, thecherished frying pans dangling on their nails, her rifle standing on thebench within reach. So far as she knew, she and Bowers were the onlyhuman beings within miles, yet she felt no fear; to be alone in thesheep wagon in the dusk of the gulch held no new sensation for her.
She was thinking of Disston as the door of the wagon swung gently to andfro, rattling the frying pan which hung on a nail on the lower half ofit, of her brusque and ungracious reply when he had told her he wascoming again to see her, of the sorry figure she had cut beside the girlhe had brought, and of her fierce resentment at the girl's covertridicule. She had shocked and disgusted Disston beyond doubt by themanner in which she had retaliated, yet she knew that in similarcircumstances she would do the same again, for her first impulsenowadays was to strike back harder than she was struck.
It seemed, she reflected, as though everything about her, herdisposition, her history, her environment and work forbade any of thepleasant episodes, which the average woman accepted as a matter ofcourse, ever happening in her life. To be an object of ridicule, thetarget of somebody's wit, appeared to be her lot. At odds with humanity,engaged almost constantly in combating the handicaps imposed by Nature,the serenity of the normal woman's life was not for her.
Anyway, one thing was certain; her poor little romance, builded upon soslight a foundation as an impulsive boy's ephemeral interest, was over.He would not come again--and she cared. She put her hand to her throat.It ached with the lump in it--yes, she cared.
The tears slipped down and wet the flour-sack pillow case. The outlinesof the coffee pot on the stove and the frying pan dangling on the doorgrew blurred. Her eyes were still swimming when she suddenly held herbreath.
An unfamiliar sound had caught her ear, a sound like a stealthyfootstep. In the instant that she waited to be sure, a hand and forearmreached inside the door and laid something on the floor.
"Who's there?"
There was no response to the imperative interrogation.
With the same movement that she swung her feet over the edge of the bunkshe reached for her rifle and ran to the door. There was not a sound orsign that was unusual save that the horses had stopped eating and withears thrown forward were looking down the gulch. She picked up the paperthat lay on the floor, struck a match and read a scrawl by its flare:
WARNING
Stop where you are if you ain't looking for trouble. Them range maggotsof yourn ain't wanted on the mountain this summer.
What did it mean? The match burned to her fingers while she conjectured.Who was objecting? Neifkins? Since there was ample range for both, andeach had kept to the boundaries which he tacitly recognized, there hadbeen no dispute. A horse outfit grazing a small herd of horses duringthe summer months, and a dry-farmer with a couple of milch cows, who,while he plowed and planted and prayed for rain, was incidentallydemonstrating the exact length of time that a human being could live onjack-rabbit and navy beans, were the only other users of the mountainrange. Was it the hoax of some local humorist? Or an attempt tointimidate and worry her by someone whose enmity she had incurred?
Whatever the motive, was it possible that any one knew her so little asto believe they could frighten her in any such manner? Her lip curled asshe asked herself the question. She had imagined that she had at leastproved her courage.
Bowers, she knew, would stand by her; the others, perhaps, would use thefamiliar argument that it cost too much for repairs to be shot up forforty-five dollars a month.
Finally, she tossed the note on the sideboard and stepped out on thewagon tongue. The stars glimmered overhead and the shadows lay black andmysterious in the gulch, but she felt no fear as she stood therestraight and soldierlike, her eyes sparkling defiance. She had, rather,a feeling of gratitude for the diversion--a hope that the threatened"trouble" might act as a kind of counter-irritant to the dull ache of herheavy heart.