The Flockmaster of Poison Creek Part 45

"Is she over there with the sheep?"

"I didn't see her around."

"The poor creature's crazy from her hard usage and suffering. I think somebody ought to go over there and help her straighten things out."

"I'll see to it," Tim promised. "Yes, it must be done. Now that wild devil's dead we must be neighborly with the widow and give her a chance. I'll see to it tomorrow. Where's my Joan?"

"She's making some broth for my supper."

"That's right, that's right--she'll care for you, lad; I'll leave her here with Rabbit to care for you. Sure. She was for you, all along. I couldn't see it."

"Well, you've got it right this time," Mackenzie said.

Tim beamed. He rubbed his hands, great satisfaction in his face.

"I'll find somebody else for my Mary--we'll consider her no more," he said. "Let you go on with Joan in the bargain in place of Mary, and give me three years for her, and the day you marry her I'll drive over to you a thousand sheep."

"Nothing doing," said Mackenzie.

"Two years, we'll say--two instead of three, John. Joan will be her own man in two years; she'll be twenty-one. And the day you marry her I'll make it fifteen hundred sheep."

"She's her own man now under the laws of this state, and I'm taking her without a single head of sheep. You can keep them all--Joan is enough for me."

Tim was a greatly injured man. His face lengthened two inches, a look of reproach came into his eyes; he seemed on the point of dissolving in tears.

"You're not goin' to quit me and take away my girl, the best one of my flock, my ewe lamb, my Joan? I didn't think you'd turn on me like that, lad; I didn't think you had it in your heart!"

"You took away Joan's ewe lambs, and her buck lambs, and all her lambs, more than a thousand of them, after she'd served you through sun and storm and earned them like a man. No, I don't think I could trust you two years, Mr. Sullivan; I don't believe your memory would hold you to a bargain that long, seeing that it would be in the family, especially."

"I'll give Joan back her flock, to run it like she was runnin' it, and I'll put it in writin' with you both. Two years, we'll say, John--two short easy years."

"No."

"Don't you throw away your chances now, John, don't you do it, lad. If you marry my Joan now I'll give you not a sheep, not one blind wether!

But if you'll stay by me a year for her I'll give you a weddin' at the end of that time they'll put big in the papers at Cheyenne, and I'll hand over to you three thousand sheep, in your own name."

"I'm not thinking as much about sheep as I was three months ago," said Mackenzie, yawning as though he had grown tired of the subject. "Joan and I have made our plans; you can approve them or turn them down.

We're going away when we're married."

"Goin' away!" said Tim, his voice betraying the hollowness of his heart.

"But we're coming back----"

"Comin' back?" said Tim, gladness in every note.

"Joan's heart is in the sheep range--she couldn't tear it away if she tried. She thought she wanted to go, but I'll have hard work to get her farther than Jasper. Joan had the lonesomeness; she's cured now."

"She had, poor gerrel! I didn't see it, but I see it now. But you'll be comin' back!"

"Yes. Joan and I belong on the sheep range--we're both too simple and confiding to run around loose in the world."

Tim was looking at Mackenzie, his head tipped to one side a little in his great, new interest, his greater, newer understanding.

"You'll come back and make it home?" said he.

"Home," Mackenzie nodded. "There's no other place that calls. You can welcome us or turn us away, but we'll find a place on the range, and I've got money enough to buy us a little band of sheep."

"No need, lad, no need for that. What I have I'll divide with you the day you come home, for I've made a place in my heart for you that's the place of a son," said Tim.

Mackenzie knew the flockmaster had reached a point at last where he would stand, writing or no writing, for there was the earnestness of truth in his voice, the vibrant softness of affection. He gave the flockmaster his hand, saying no word. Tim took it between his own as if he held a woman's, and held it so while he spoke:

"And the place is here for you when you come back be it a year from now or five years. You're a sheepman now, John."

"And I'm more," said Mackenzie, with a contented sigh. "I'm a sheepwoman's man."