The Flockmaster of Poison Creek Part 15

"I'll kill her, I'll kill her!" said Joan.

She panted, half crying, struggling to free her arm that she might fire again.

"All right, let 'em have it!" Mackenzie said, seeing the havoc among the sheep.

Swan and his woman rode like a whirlwind through the flock, the dogs after them with sharp cries, the frightened bleating of the lambs, the beating of two thousand hoofs, adding to the confusion of what had been a peaceful pastoral scene but a few minutes before. Joan cut loose at the disturbers of this peace, emptying the revolver quickly, but without effect.

Half way through the herd Swan leaned down and caught a lamb by the leg, swung it around his head as lightly as a man would wave his hat, and rode on with it in savage triumph. Mackenzie s.n.a.t.c.hed the rifle from the wagon. His shot came so close to Swan that he dropped the lamb. The woman fell behind Swan, interposing herself as a s.h.i.+eld, and in this formation they rode on, sweeping down the narrow thread of green valley, galloping wildly away into the sanctuary of the hills.

Mackenzie stood, gun half lifted, and watched them go without another shot, afraid to risk it lest he hit the woman. He turned to Joan, who stood by, white with anger, the empty revolver in her hand.

"Are you hurt, Joan?" he asked, in foolish weakness, knowing very well that she was.

"No, she didn't hurt me--but I'll kill her for it!" said Joan.

She was trembling; her face was bloodless in the cold anger that shook her. There was a red welt on her neck, purple-marked on its ridge where the rawhide had almost cut her tender skin.

"Swan Carlson has pulled his woman down to his savage level at last,"

Mackenzie said.

"She's worse than he is; she's a range wolf!"

"I believe she is. But it always happens that way when a person gets to going."

"With those two and the Hall boys you'll not have a ghost of a chance to hold this range, John. You'd better let me help you begin working the sheep over toward my camp tonight."

"No, I'm going to stay here."

"Swan and that woman just rode through here to get the lay of your camp. More than likely they'll come over and burn you out tonight--pour coal oil on the wagon and set it afire."

"Let 'em; I'll not be in it."

"They'll worry you night and day, kill your sheep, maybe kill you, if you don't come away. It isn't worth it; dad was right about it. For the sake of peace, let them have it, John."

Mackenzie stood in silence, looking the way Swan and his woman had gone, the gun held as if ready to lift and fire at the showing of a hat-crown over the next hill. He seemed to be considering the situation. Joan studied his face with eager hopefulness, bending forward a bit to see better in the failing light.

"They've got to be shown that a master has come to the sheep country,"

he said, in low voice, as if to himself. "I'll stay and prove it to all of them at once."

Joan knew there was no use to argue or appeal. She dropped the matter there, and Mackenzie put the gun away.

"I'm sorry I haven't anything to put on it," he said, looking at the red welt on her neck.

"I'm sorry I missed her," said Joan.

"It isn't so much the sting of a blow, I know," he comforted, "as the hurt of the insult. Never mind it, Joan; she's a vicious, wild woman, jealous because Swam took notice of you."

"It was a great compliment!"

"I wish I had some balm for it that would cure it in a second, and take away the memory of the way it was done," said he, very softly.

"I'll kill her," flared Joan.

"I don't like to hear you say that, Joan," he chided, and reached and laid his hand consolingly upon the burning mark.

Joan caught her breath as if he had touched her skin with ice. He withdrew his hand quickly, blaming himself for the rudeness of his rough hand.

"You didn't hurt me, John," she said, her eyes downcast, the color of warm blood playing over her face.

"I might have," he blamed himself, in such seriousness as if it were the gravest matter he had risked, and not the mere touching of a blood-red welt upon a simple maiden's neck.

"I'll be over early in the morning to see if you're all right," she told him as she turned again to her horse.

"If you can come, even to show yourself on the hill," said he.

"Show myself? Why, a person would think you were worrying about me."

"I am, Joan. I wish you would give up herding sheep, let the share and the prospect and all of it go, and have your father put a herder in to run that band for you."

"They'll not hurt me; as mean as they are they'll not fight a woman.

Anyway, I'm not over the deadline."

"There's something prowling this range that doesn't respect lines, Joan."

"You mean the grizzly?"

"Yes, the grizzly that rides a horse."

"Dad Frazer thinks you were mistaken on that, John."

"I know. Dad Frazer thinks I'm a better schoolteacher than I'll ever be a sheepman, I guess. But I've met bears enough that I don't have to imagine them. Keep your gun close by you tonight, and every night."

"I will," she promised, moved by the earnestness of his appeal.

Dusk was thickening into darkness over the sheeplands; the dogs were driving the straggling sheep back to the bedding-ground, where many of them already lay in contentment, quickly over the flurry of Swan Carlson's pa.s.sing. Joan stood at her stirrup, her face lifted to the heavens, and it was white as an evening primrose under the shadow of her hat. She lingered as if there remained something to say or be said, something to give or to take, before leaving her friend and teacher alone to face the dangers of the night. Perhaps she thought of Rachel, and the kiss her kinsman gave her when he rolled the stone from the well's mouth, and lifted up his voice and wept.

Mackenzie stood a little apart, thinking his own swift-running thoughts, quickening under the leap of his own eager blood. But no matter for Jacob's precedent, Mackenzie had no excuse of even distant relations.h.i.+p to offer for such familiarity. The desire was urging, but the justification was not at hand. So Joan rode away unkissed, and perhaps wondering why.

CHAPTER XI

HECTOR HALL SETS A BEACON

Mackenzie sat a long time on his hill that night, his ear turned to the wind, smoking his pipe and thinking the situation over while listening for the first sound of commotion among the sheep.

He had pledged himself to Tim and Joan that he would not quit the sheep country without proving that he had in him the mettle of a flockmaster. Hector Hall had been given to understand the same thing. In fact, Mackenzie thought, it looked as if he had been running with his eyes shut, making boastful pledges.