The dogs came slowly to meet Mackenzie as he approached, backs still bristling, countenances unpromising. The boy had disappeared into the wagon; Mackenzie wondered if he had gone to fetch his gun.
But no. Instead of a gun, came a girl, neither timidity nor fear in her bearing, and close behind her came the boy, hat still in his hand, his long, straight hair down about his ears. Mackenzie had stopped a hundred 39 yards or so distant, not confident of a friendly reception from the dogs. The girl waved her hand in invitation for him to come on, and stood waiting at the wagon end.
She was as neatly dressed as the lad beside her was uncouth in his man-size overalls, her short corduroy skirt belted about with a broad leather clasped with a gleaming silver buckle, the tops of her tall laced boots lost beneath its hem. Her gray flannel waist was laced at the bosom like a cowboy’s shirt, adorned at the collar with a flaming scarlet necktie done in a bow as broad as a band. Her brown sombrero was tilted, perhaps unintentionally, a little to one side of her rather pert and independently carried head.
At a word from her the dogs left the way unopposed, and as greetings passed between the sheepgirl and the stranger the wise creatures stood beside her, eyeing the visitor over with suspicious mien. Mackenzie told his name and his business, making inquiry in the same breath for Tim Sullivan’s ranch.
“Do you know Mr. Sullivan?” she asked. And as she lifted her eyes Mackenzie saw that they were as blue as asters on an October morning, and that her hair was a warm reddish-brown, and that her face was refreshingly pure in its outline, strong and haughty and brown, and subtly sweet as the elusive perfume of a wild rose of the hills.
“No, I don’t know Mr. Sullivan; I’ve never even seen him. I’ve heard a lot about him down at Jasper––I was the schoolteacher there.”
“Oh, you’re up here on your vacation?” said she, a light of quick interest in her eyes, an unmistakable 40 friendliness in her voice. It was as if he had presented a letter from somebody well and favorably known.
“No, I’ve come up here to see about learning the sheep business.”
“Sheep business?” said she, looking at him with surprised eyes. “Sheep business?” this time with a shading of disgust. “Well, if I had sense enough to teach school I’d never want to see another sheep!”
Mackenzie smiled at her impetuous outburst in which she revealed in a word the discontent of her heart.
“Of course you know Mr. Sullivan?”
“He’s my father,” she returned. “This is my brother Charley; there are eight more of us at home.”
Charley grinned, his shyness still over him, but his alarm quieted, and gave Mackenzie his hand.
“The ranch is about thirteen or fifteen miles on up the creek from here,” she said, “You haven’t had your breakfast, have you?”
“No; I just about finished my grub yesterday.”
“I didn’t see any grease around your gills,” said the girl, in quite a matter-of-fact way, no flippancy in her manner. “Charley, stir up the fire, will you? I can’t offer you much, Mr. Mackenzie, but you’re welcome to what there is. How about a can of beans?”
“You’ve hit me right where I live, Miss Sullivan.”
The collies came warily up, stiff-legged, with backs still ruffled, and sniffed Mackenzie over. They seemed to find him harmless, turning from him presently to go and lie beside Charley, their faces toward the flock, alert ears lifted, white breasts gleaming in the sun like the linen of fastidious gentlemen.
41
“Do you want me to get any water, Joan?” Charley inquired.
Joan answered from inside the wagon that no water was needed, there was coffee enough in the pot. She handed the smoke-blackened vessel out to Mackenzie as she spoke, telling him to go and put it on the fire.
Joan turned the beans into the pan after cooking the bacon, and sent Charley to the wagon for a loaf of bread.
“We don’t have to bake bread in this camp, that’s one blessing,” she said. “Mother keeps us supplied. Some of these sheepherders never taste anything but their cold-water biscuits for years at a time.”
“It must get kind of tiresome,” Mackenzie reflected, thinking of his own efforts at bread-making on the road.
“It’s too heavy to carry around in the craw,” said Joan.
Charley watched Mackenzie curiously as he ate, whispering once to his sister, who flushed, turned her eyes a moment on her visitor, and then seemed to rebuke the lad for passing confidences in such impolite way. Mackenzie guessed that his discolored neck and bruised face had been the subject of the boy’s conjectures, but he did not feel pride enough in his late encounter to speak of it even in explanation. Charley opened the way to it at last when Joan took the breakfast things back to the wagon.
“Have you been in a fight?” the boy inquired.
“Not much of a one,” Mackenzie told him, rather wishing that the particulars might be reserved.
“Your neck’s black like somebody’d been chokin’ you, 42 and your face is bunged up some, too. Who done it?”
“Do you know Swan Carlson?” Mackenzie inquired, turning slowly to the boy.
“Swan Carlson?” Charley’s face grew pale at the name; his eyes started in round amazement. “You couldn’t never ’a’ got away from Swan; he choked two fellers to death, one in each hand. No man in this country could whip one side of Swan.”
“Well, I got away from him, anyhow,” said Mackenzie, in a manner that even the boy understood to be the end of the discussion.
But Charley was not going to have it so. He jumped up and ran to meet Joan as she came from the wagon.
“Mr. Mackenzie had a fight with Swan Carlson––that’s what’s the matter with his neck!” he said. There was unbounded admiration in the boy’s voice, and exultation as if the distinction were his own. Here before his eyes was a man who had come to grips with Swan Carlson, and had escaped from his strangling hands to eat his breakfast with as much unconcern as if he had no more than been kicked by a mule.
Joan came on a little quicker, excitement reflected in her lively eyes. Mackenzie was filling his pipe, which had gone through the fight in his pocket in miraculous safety––for which he was duly grateful––ashamed of his bruises, now that the talk of them had brought them to Joan’s notice again.
“I hope you killed him,” she said, coming near, looking down on Mackenzie with full commendation; “he keeps his crazy wife chained up like a dog!”
“I don’t think he’s dead, but I’d like to know for 43 sure,” Mackenzie returned, his eyes bent thoughtfully on the ground.
“Nobody will ever say a word to you if you did kill him,” Joan assured. “They’d all know he started it––he fusses with everybody.”
She sat on the ground near him, Charley posting himself a little in front, where he could admire and wonder over the might of a man who could break Swan Carlson’s hold upon his throat and leave his house alive. Before them the long valley widened as it reached away, the sheep a dusty brown splotch in it, spread at their grazing, the sound of the lambs’ wailing rising clear in the pastoral silence.
“I stopped at Carlson’s house after dark last night,” Mackenzie explained, seeing that such explanation must be made, “and turned his wife loose. Carlson resented it when he came home. He said I’d have to fight him. But you’re wrong when you believe what Carlson says about that woman; she isn’t crazy, and never was.”
That seemed to be all the story, from the way he hastened it, and turned away from the vital point of interest. Joan touched