She regarded him with a faint inscrutable smile until Bowers interrupted:
"How many bells shall I put on them yearlin"s?"
"One in fifty; and cut those five wethers out of the ewe herd. Catch those yearling ewes with the wether earmark and change to the shoe-string."
"What do you want done with that feller in the pen?"
"Saw his horn off and I"ll throw him into the buck herd later."
"Where"ll Oleson hold his sheep?"
"Well up the creek; and if he lets them mix again--"
"He says he can"t do nothin" without a dog," Bowers ventured.
"Then he"d better quit right now--you can tell him." Kate"s voice was curt, incisive, her tone final. "He can"t use a dog on these Rambouillets--they"re high-strung, nervous, different from the merinos.
Anyway, I won"t have it." She swung about to indicate that the conversation was ended.
"That"s all Greek to me. Do you understand it, Hugh?" Miss Rathburn"s lofty drawl, her faintly patronizing manner, all indicated amus.e.m.e.nt.
"I don"t know much about sheep," he admitted.
"Do you know--" to Kate, with all her social manner--"you are deliciously unique?"
Kate, who detected the sneer, but had no social manner to meet it, asked brusquely:
"In what way?"
"You"re so--" she hesitated for a word and seemed to search her vocabulary for the right one--"so strong-minded."
Kate"s eyes were sparkling.
"If by that you mean intelligent, I thank you for the compliment, and I"m sorry that I can"t--" She checked herself, but the inference was clear that she intended to add--"return it."
Miss Rathburn"s fair skin became a deeper pink than even a pink-lined parasol warranted, while Kate addressed herself to Disston exclusively.
Disston had listened in dismay. Whatever was the matter? In truth, it must be, he told himself, that women were natural enemies. He never had seen this feline streak in Beth to recognize it, and he had felt instinctively that, on Kate"s side, from the first glance she had not liked her visitor.
To Beth Rathburn, it was ridiculous that Disston should take seriously this girl who, at the moment, was considerably less presentable than any one of their own servants--that he should treat her with all the deference he showed to any woman of his acquaintance, as if she were of his own cla.s.s exactly! And a worse offense was his obviously keen interest in her. It was a new sensation for the southern girl to be ignored, or at least omitted from the conversation, and each second her resentment grew, though the underlying cause was that she felt herself overshadowed by Kate"s stronger personality.
To remind Disston of his remissness she walked over to a pen where Bowers, astride a powerful buck, saw in hand, was having his own troubles. She returned almost immediately, shuddering prettily:
"He"s sawing that sheep"s horn off! Doesn"t it hurt it?"
"Not nearly so much as letting it grow to put its eye out."
"I presume you do that, too?" The girl"s eyes and tone were mocking.
"Oh, yes, I do everything that"s necessary." There was something savage in Kate"s composure as she turned directly and looked at her. "I have sheared sheep when I had no money to pay herders, slept out in the hills on the ground on a saddle blanket with my saddle for a pillow. I"ve made my underwear out of flour sacks and my skirts of denim. I"ve lived on corn meal and salt pork and dried apples and rabbits for months at a time. I eat and hobn.o.b with sheepherders from one year"s end to the other. I"m out with a drop bunch in the lambing season, and I brand the bucks myself--on the nose--burn them with a hot iron. I"ll send you word when I"m going to do it again and you can come over--it"s e-normously amusing. Just wait a minute--come over to the fence here--and I"ll show you something. I"m even more deliciously unique than you imagine."
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."