"You'd look pretty in anything," he responded gallantly.

She detected the evasion and persisted:

"But you think I'd look nicer in dresses, don't you?"

Embarra.s.sed, he responded hesitatingly:

"You see--down South where I come from the girls all wear white and lace and ribbon sashes and carry parasols and think a lot about their complexions. You're just--different."

The herder waved his arm. "Way 'round 'em, Shep," and the sheep began moving.

"Good-bye," the girl gathered up the reins reluctantly.

"You didn't tell me your name."

"Katie Prentice."

"Mine's Hughie Disston," he added, his black eyes shining with friendliness. "Maybe I'll see you again sometime."

She answered shyly:

"Maybe."

Toomey started away at a gallop, calling sharply:

"Come on, Hughie!"

The boy followed with obvious reluctance, sending a smile over his shoulder when he found that the girl was looking after him.

"Hope you make out all right with your town," said Teeters politely as, ignoring his employer's instructions, he turned his horse's head in a direction of his own choosing.

"No doubt about it," replied the Major, briskly, gathering up the lines and bringing the stub of a whip down with a thwack upon each back impartially. "S'long!" He waved it at the girl and sheepherder. "I trust you'll find a location to suit you."

"Pardner," said Mormon Joe suddenly, when the Major was a blur in a cloud of dust and the hors.e.m.e.n were specks in the distance, "this looks like home to me somehow. There ought to be great sheep feed over there in the foothills and summer range in the mountains. What do you think of it?"

"Oh--goody!" the girl cried eagerly. "Isn't it funny, I was hoping you'd say that."

He looked at her quizzically.

"Tired of trailing sheep, Katie, or do you think you might have company?"

She flushed in confusion, but admitted honestly:

"Both, maybe."

CHAPTER III

PROUTY

Major Prouty hung over the hitching post in front of the post office listening with a beatific smile to the sound of the saw and the hammer that came from the Opera House going up at the corner of Prouty Avenue and Wildwood Street. The Major's eyes held the brooding tenderness of a patron saint, as he looked the length of the wide street of the town which bore his name.

"Sunnin' yourself, Major?" inquired Hiram Butefish jocularly as he pa.s.sed; then paused to add, "I'm lookin' for a big turn-out at the Boosters Club to-night."

"I trust so, Hiram."

Aside from himself, no one person had contributed more to Prouty's growth than the editor of the _Grit_.

Mr. Butefish had arrived among the first with the intention of opening a plumbing shop, but since the water supply was furnished by a windmill the demand for his services was not apt to be pressing for some time to come.

Therefore, with true western resourcefulness he bought the handpress of a defunct sheet and turned to journalism instead. Though less lucrative, moulding public opinion and editing a paper that was to be a recognized power in the state seemed to Mr. Butefish a step ahead.

The Middle West had responded n.o.bly to his editorial appeals to come out and help found an Empire. The majority of the optimistic citizens who walked with their heads in the clouds and their eyes on the roseate future were there through his efforts. Appreciative of this fact, the Major's eyes were kindly as they gazed upon the editor's retreating back.

His expression was benignity itself as his glance turned lovingly to the Prouty House and the White Hand Laundry--the latter in particular being a milestone on the road of Progress since it heralded the fact that the day was not far distant when a man could wear a boiled shirt without embarra.s.sing comment. Three saloons, the General Merchandise Emporium, and "Doc" Fussel's drug store completed the list of business enterprises as yet, but others were in contemplation and a bottling works was underway. Oh, yes, Prouty was indelibly on the map.

The Major's complacent smile changed to a slight frown as a man in a black tall crowned hat stopped to rest his back against the post of the Laundry sign.

It had reached the Major's ears that Mormon Joe had said that Prouty had no more future than a prairie dog town. He had been in his cups at the time but that did not palliate the offense.

Now, there--there was the kind of a man that helped a town! The Major's brow cleared as Jasper Toomey swung round the corner by the Prouty House and clattered down the main street sitting high-headed and arrogant in a Brewster cart. Spent money like a prince--he did. A few more people like the Toomeys and the future of the country was a.s.sured.

In the meantime Toomey had brought the velvet-mouthed horse to its haunches in front of the laundry where he tossed a bundle into the sheepman's arms, saying casually;

"Take that inside, my man."

Without a change of expression, Mormon Joe caught it, rolled it compactly and kicked it over the horse's back into the street.

"There's no bra.s.s b.u.t.tons sewed on my coat--take it yourself!" Mormon Joe shrugged a shoulder as he walked off.

Walter Scales of the Emporium dashed into the street and recovered the laundry with an apologetic air as though he were somehow responsible for the act.

"You have to make allowances for the rough characters that swarm into a new country," he said, as he delivered the bundle himself.

"I'll break that pauper sheepherder before I quit!" A vein under Toomey's right eye and another on his temple stood out swollen and purple.

"People like him that send away for their grub and never spend a cent they can help in their home town don't benefit a country none." Mr.

Scales did not attempt to conceal his pleasure at the foot-long list Toomey handed him. He added urgently, "Wisht you'd try and stay in for the Boosters Club to-night, Mr. Toomey. We'd like your advice."

Toomey refused curtly.

"Get that order out at once," he said peremptorily, as he drove off.

No invitation cordial or otherwise was extended to Mormon Joe, so it was upon his own initiative that he stumbled into the room where the Boosters Club was in session that evening. Unmistakably drunk, Joe sat down noisily beside Clarence Teeters who was the only one who made room for him.