The Fighting Shepherdess

by Lockhart, Caroline

  Mrs. Toomey glowed with gratitude to Kate and the delightful sensation of relaxed nerves after a tension. She felt as peaceful as though she had taken an opiate, therefore, when Toomey came in swaggering and with the black brow which told her of disappointment, she smiled at him tranquilly.

  The smile irritated him.

  “I wish you’d stop grinning.”

  Too happy to be perturbed, she replied in mock severity:

  “If I cry, you resent it; if I smile, you stop me. Really, you know, you’re rather difficult.”

  “You’d be difficult, too, if you had to try to do business with a bunch of tightwads. We’ve nothing to grin about, let me tell you.”

  “Haven’t we?” archly.

  He eyed her radiant face and ejaculated:

  “Lord, but you look simple! What ails you?”

  “Nothing fatal,” she laughed gaily. “But tell me, Jap, what went wrong this morning?”

  The question recalled him to his grievances.

  “You know that scheme I told you about last night?”

  “Which one?” Mrs. Toomey searched her memory.

  “Don’t you ever listen when I talk to you?”

  “I was so sleepy,” apologetically.

  “That one to ‘glom’ all the land between Willow Creek and the mountain.”

  “Oh, yes,” vaguely. “Couldn’t you interest anybody?”

  “How can you interest clods who have no imagination?”

  “What did they say about it?”

  “Scales told me to go out and hold my head under the spout and he’d pump on it. If ever I get a dollar ahead to pay my fine, I’m going to work that son-of-a-gun over.”

  Mrs. Toomey sobered. The flippancy of the grocer was additional evidence that her husband was considered a light-weight, even in Prouty. It hurt her inexpressibly. The desire to work her surprise to a dramatic climax suddenly left her. She said quietly:

  “Our worries are over for the present, Jap.” She walked to the bureau and took out the money. “There is five hundred dollars.”

  He stared at it, at her, and back again incredulously.

  “Is this a joke?” finally.

  She shook her head.

  “Kate Prentice.”

  He shouted at her.

  “What? You borrowed from her?”

  “She promised it to me before the—the—”

  “You can’t keep it.”

  “But, Jap—”

  “I say you can’t keep it.”

  “But, Jap—” she whimpered.

  “Do you think I want to be under obligations to that—”

  She put her hand over his mouth.

  “You shan’t say it! She’s been generous. She kept her promise when neither you nor I would have done it, and I’m going to stand by her.”

  “You’ll do nothing of the kind!” savagely.

  “Now listen, Jap,” she went on pleadingly. “We need this so terribly—we’re in no position to consider our feelings—we can pay it back the minute you get into something. I don’t understand why you feel so strongly about her, but since you do, I respect you for not wanting to take it. However, the loan isn’t to you, it’s to me; it’s a business proposition, and when we return it we’ll pay interest.”

  He was listening sullenly and she read in his wavering look that he was weakening.

  “You must be sensible, Jap. Be reasonable, for we haven’t a dollar, and look—here are five hundred of them! We simply can’t refuse.”

  She saw the greedy glint in his eyes as she held the money toward him, and knew that the battle was over.

  “I’ll not have anything to do with it, anyway.”

  She could have smiled at his continued pretence of reluctance, his fictitious dignity, if it had not saddened her. As she returned the money to the bureau drawer and slowly closed it she was conscious that in her heart she would have been glad and proud if he had not yielded.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XII

  THE DUDE WRANGLER

  With his tongue in his cheek, literally, and perspiring like a blacksmith, Teeters sat at the table in the kitchen of the Scissor Ranch house, and by the flickering light of a candle in a lard can wrote letters to the heads of the Vanderbilt and Astor families, to the President and those of his Cabinet whose names he could remember.

  Briefly, but in a style that was intimate and slightly humorous, Teeters conveyed the information that he was starting a dude ranch, and if they were thinking of taking an outing the coming summer they would be treated right at the “Scissor” or have their money refunded. He guaranteed a first class A1 cook, with a signed contract to wash his hands before breakfast, a good saddle horse for each guest, and plenty of bedding.

  He did not aim to handle over ten head of dudes to start with, so, if they wanted to play safe, they had better answer upon receipt of his letter, he warned them, signing himself after deliberation:

  Yure frend

  C. Teeters

  “I’ll bet me I’ll buy me some lamp chimbleys and heave out this palouser. A feller can’t half see what he’s doin’,” he grumbled as he eyed a large blot on the envelope addressed to the President. “The whole place,” sourly, “looks like a widdy woman’s outfit.”

  Teeters hammered down the flaps with a vigor that made the unwashed dishes on the table rattle, and grinned as he pictured the astonishment of Major Stephen Douglas Prouty, who was still postmaster, when he read the names of the personages with whom he, Teeters, was in correspondence—after which he looked at the clock and saw that it was only seven.

  So he thrust his hands in the pockets of his overalls, and, with his chair tilted against the wall at a comfortable angle, speculated as to his chances of success in the dude business.

  The more Teeters had thought of Mormon Joe’s assertion that, outside of stock, the chief asset of the country was its climate and its scenery, the more he had come to believe that Joe’s advice to turn the Scissor outfit into a place for eastern tourists was valuable. It had been done elsewhere successfully, and there was no dearth of accommodations on the place, since there was nothing much to the ranch but the buildings, as Toomey had fenced and broken up only enough land to patent the homestead.

  Although Teeters was now the ostensible owner, in reality the place belonged to Hughie Disston’s father, who had been the heaviest loser in the cattle company. Hughie had written Teeters that if they recovered from the reverse, and others that had come to them, they hoped to re-stock the range that was left to them and he wished to spend at least a portion of the year there. In the meantime, it was for Teeters to do what he could with it.

  “Dudes” had seemed to be the answer to his problem.

  While making up his mind, he had not acted hastily. He had consulted the spirits, with Mrs. Emmeline Taylor and her ouija board as intermediary. “Starlight” had thought highly of the undertaking, and Mrs. Taylor, knowing that Miss Maggie’s hope chest was full to overflowing, encouraged it. There had been a time when bankers, railroad and other magnates had been in her dreams for her daughter, and a mere rancher like Teeters was unthinkable, but with the passing of the years she had modified her ambitions somewhat. So she had said benignly, patting his shoulder:

  “The angels will look after you, as they have after me. Don’t be afraid, Clarence.”

  It had occurred to Clarence that the not inconsiderable herd of Herefords Mr. Taylor had left behind him at “Happy Wigwam” might have had as much to do with Mrs. Taylor’s feeling of security as the guardianship of the angels, but he answered merely, though somewhat cryptically:

  “Even if I lose my money it won’t cost me nothin’—I worked for it.”

  Teeters glanced at the clock, yawned as he saw that the hands pointed to half past seven, and unhooked his heels from the rung of the chair preparatory to retiring.

  A horse snorted, and the sound of hoofs on the frozen dooryard brought Teeters to attention. What honest person could be out jamming ar
ound this time of night, he wondered.

  In preparation for callers he reached for his cartridge belt and holster that hung on a nail and laid them on the table.

  The door opened and a stranger entered, blinking. The fringe of icicles hanging from his moustache looked like the contrivance to curtail the activities of cows given to breaking and entering.

  “I seen you through the winder,” he said apologetically.

  “I heard your horse whinner,” Teeters replied, politely, rising.

  “This banany belt’s gittin’ colder every winter.” The stranger broke off an icicle and laid it on the stove to hear it sizzle.

  “I was jest fixin’ to turn in,” Teeters hinted. “Last night I didn’t sleep good. I tossed and thrashed around until half-past eight 'fore I closed my eyes.”

  “I won’t keep you up, then. I come over on business. Bowers’s my name. I’m a-workin’ for Miss Prentice. I’m a sheepherder myself by perfession.”

  Teeters received the announcement with equanimity, so he continued:

  “Along about two o’clock this afternoon I got an idea that nigh knocked me over. I bedded my sheep early and took a chance on leavin’ them, seein’ as it was on her account I wanted to talk to you. You’re a friend of her'n, ain’t you?”

  “To the end of the road,” Teeters replied soberly.

  Bowers nodded.

  “So somebody told me. Are you goin’ to town anyways soon?”

  “To-morrow.”

  “Good! Will you take a message to Lingle?”

  Teeters assented.

  “Tell him for me that the night of the murder there was a onery breed-lookin’ feller that smelt like a piece of Injun-tanned buckskin a settin’ in Doc Fussel’s drug store. He acted oneasy, as I come to think it over, and he went out jest before the killin’. I never thought of it at the time, but he might have been the feller that done it.”

  “I’ll tell Lingle, but I don’t think there’s anything in it.”

  “Why?”

  Teeters’ eyes narrowed.

  “Because I know where the gun come from!”

  Bowers looked his astonishment.

  “I’d swear to that gun stock on a stack of Bibles,” Teeters continued. “It was swelled from layin’ in water, and a blacksmith riveted it. The blacksmith died last summer or by now we’d a had his affidavit.”

  “Ain’t that sick'nin’!” Bowers referred to the exasperating demise of the blacksmith.

  “Anyway, Lingle’s workin’ like a horse on the case, and I think he’ll clear it up directly. How’s she standin’ it?”

  “Like a soldier.”

  “She’s got sand.”

  “She’s made of it,” laconically, “and I aims to stay by her.”

  Teeters hesitated; then, for the first time in his life he gave his hand to a sheepherder, and, at parting, as further evidence that the caste line was down between them, said heartily:

  “Come over next Sunday and eat with me; I got six or eight cackle-berries I been savin’ fur somethin’ special.”

  “Thanks. Aigs is my favor-ite fruit,” Bowers replied appreciatively.

  The next day Teeters went into the post office at Prouty with more letters than he had written in all his life together. The Major was at the window perspiring under the verbal attack of a highly incensed lady.

  A deeply interested listener, Teeters gathered that the postmaster’s faulty orthography was to blame for the contumely heaped upon him. In vain the Major protested his innocence of any malicious intent when, after hearing a rumor to the effect that the lady had died during an absence from Prouty, he wrote “diseased” upon a letter addressed to her, and returned it to the sender.

  “I’m goin’ to sue you for libel!” was her parting shot at him.

  “Like as not she’ll do it,” said the Major, despondently, and added with bitterness, “I wisht I’d died before I got this post office! Teeters,” he continued, impressively, “lemme tell you somethin’: anybody can git a post office by writin’ a postal card to Washington, but men have gone down to their graves tryin’ to git rid of ’em. The only sure way is to heave ’em into the street and jump out o’ the country between sundown and daylight.

  “I’ve met fellers hidin’ in the mountains that I used to think was fugitive murderers—they had all the earmarks—but now I know better; they was runnin’ away from third-and fourth-class post offices. If ever you’re tempted, remember what I’ve told you. Anything I can do for you, Teeters?”

  Teeters threw out his mail carelessly.

  “Just weigh up them letters, will you?”

  The name of the head of the Astor family caught the postmaster’s eyes and he looked his astonishment.

  “I’m expectin’ him out next summer,” Teeters said casually.

  “You don’t say?” with a mixture of respect and skepticism. “Visitin’?”

  “Not exactly visitin’—he’ll pay for stayin’. I’m tellin’ you private that I’m goin’ to wrangle dudes next season. I made him a good proposition and I think it’ll ketch him.”

  “It would be a good ad. for the country,” said the Major, thoughtfully. “But wouldn’t you be afraid he’d get lonesome out there with nobody passin’?”

  “I’ve thought over this consider'ble,” Teeters lowered his voice, “and I figger that the secret of handlin’ dudes is to keep ’em busy. I’ve been around ’em a whole lot, off an’ on, over on the Yellastone, and I’ve noticed that the best way to get anythin’ done is to tell ’em not to touch it and then go off and leave ’em. Of course an out-an’-out dude is a turrible nuisance, and dang'rous, but you got to charge enough to cover the damage he does tryin’ to be wild and woolly.”

  He went on confidentially: “Between you and me, I’ve worked out a scale of prices for allowin’ ’em to help me—so much for diggin’ post holes and stretchin’ wire, so much for shinglin’ a roof or grubbin’ sagebrush. Only the very wealthy can afford to drive a wagon and spread fertilizer, or clean out the corral and cowshed, and it’ll take a bank account to pitch alfalfa in hayin’. If they thought I wanted ’em to help, or needed ’em, they’d laugh at me.”

  “Dudes is peculiar,” the Major admitted. “I never had much truck with ’em, but I knowed a feller in the Jackson Hole County that made quite a stake out of dudin’. They took him to Warm Springs afterward—he’d weakened his mind answerin’ questions—but he left his family well pervided for. Teeters,” earnestly, “why don’t you put your money in somethin’ substantial—stock in the Ditch Company, or Prouty real estate?”

  Teeters shook his head.

  “Without aimin’ to toot my horn none, I got a notion I can wrangle dudes to a fare-ye-well. I’ll give it a try-out, anyway. By the way, Major, have you seen Lingle? How’s the case comin’?”

  The Major’s face changed instantly and he said with quite obvious sarcasm:

  “He’s busier than a man killin’ rattlesnakes, and he’s makin’ himself unpopular, I can tell you, tryin’ to stir up somethin’.”

  Teeters looked at him wonderingly but said nothing; instead, he went out in search of the deputy.

  Lingle was sitting dejectedly on the edge of the sidewalk when Teeters found him, and the deputy returned his spicy greeting dispiritedly.

  “You look bilious as a cat,” said Teeters, eying him. “Why don’t you take somethin’?”

  “You bet I’m bilious—the world looks plumb ja'ndiced!” the deputy answered, with feeling.

  “What’s the matter?” Teeters sobered in sudden anxiety. “Ain’t the case—”

  A frown grew between the deputy’s eyebrows.

  “The case is gettin’ nowhere. Things don’t look right, and I can’t exactly put my finger on it.”

  “What do you mean, Lingle?” quickly.

  “I mean that people are actin’ curious—them sports inside—” he jerked his thumb at the Boosters’ Club behind him, “and the authorities.”

  “How do you mean
—curious?”

  “Don’t show any interest—throw a wet blanket over everything as if they wanted to discourage me—I’m not sure that they’re not tryin’ to block me.”

  “But why would they?” Teeters looked incredulous.

  Lingle shrugged a shoulder.

  “I don’t know yet, but I’ve got my own opinion.”

  “But you won’t lay down,” Teeters pleaded, “even if they pull against you?”

  “Not to notice!” the deputy replied grimly.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XIII

  MRS. TOOMEY'S FRIENDSHIP IS TESTED

  Momentarily flustered, flattered, and not a little curious, Mrs. Toomey opened the door one afternoon and admitted Mrs. Abram Pantin, who announced vivaciously that she had run in informally for a few minutes and brought her shadow embroidery.

  Since Mrs. Pantin never ran in informally anywhere, and she was wearing the sunburst and rings which Mrs. Toomey had noted were in evidence when she wished particularly to have her position appreciated, the hostess, while expressing her pleasure, sought for the real purpose of the visit.

  Ostensibly admiring Mrs. Pantin’s new coiffure, she thought, bridling, “Perhaps she’s come to find out how we’re managing since Mr. Pantin refused us.”

  Yet Mrs. Toomey had to acknowledge that this did not seem like her visitor, either, for ordinarily she was too self-centered to be very curious about others.

  As the afternoon passed and Mrs. Pantin twittered brightly on impersonal subjects, introducing topics which evidenced clearly that her mentality was of a higher order than that of the women about her, whose conversation consisted chiefly of gossip and trivial happenings, Mrs. Toomey came to think that she was mistaken and that this friendly visit was a rare compliment.