Bowers was not due at headquarters for several days, so as soon as Kate found the leisure she set out to take his mail to him, antic.i.p.ating with some enjoyment his confusion when he saw the extent of it. She came across him out in the hills, engaged in some occupation which so absorbed him that he did not hear her until she was all but upon him.

"Oh, h.e.l.lo!" His face lighted up in pleased surprise when he saw her. "I was jest skinnin' out a rattlesnake for you."

"Were you, Bowers?" She looked at him oddly. "You are always doing something nice for me, aren't you?"

"This is the purtiest rattler I've seen this season," he declared with enthusiasm. "Look at the markin' on him. I thought it ud show up kind of nifty laid around the cantle of your saddle. A rattlesnake skin sh.o.r.e makes a purty trimmin', to my notion. Don't know what he was doin' out of his hole so late in the season. He was so chilled I got him easy--an old feller--nine rattles and a b.u.t.ton."

Kate got off her horse and sat down to watch him while Bowers enumerated the possibilities of snake skins as decorations.

"I brought your mail to you," she said when he had finished.--"Letters."

"Now who could be writin' to me?" he demanded in feigned innocence.

"I'm curious myself, since there's a bushel," she answered dryly.

Bowers looked up at the bulging mail sack and colored furiously. Then he blurted out in desperate candor:

"I ain't honest, but I won't lie--I been advertisin'."

"What for?"

The perspiration broke out on Bowers's forehead.

"I thought I'd git married, if anybody that looked good to me would have me."

"You're not happy, Bowers?" she asked gently.

"I ain't sufferin', but I ain't livin' in what you'd call no seventh heaven."

Kate smiled at the grim irony of his tone.

"It's not up to much, this life of ours out here," she agreed in a low voice.

"Nothin' to look forward to--nothin' to look back to," he said bitterly.

"I understand," Kate nodded.

"I never had as much home life as a coyote," he continued with rebellion in his tone. "A coyote does git a den and a family around him every spring." And he added shortly, "I'm lonesome."

They sat in a long silence, Kate with her hands clasped about a knee and looking off at the mountain. She turned to him after a while:

"Do you like me, Bowers?"

"I sh.o.r.e do."

Then she asked with quiet deliberation:

"Well enough to--marry me?"

Bowers looked at her, speechless. He managed finally:

"Are you joshin'?"

"No."

A prairie dog rose up in front of them and chattered. They both stared at him. Bowers reached over and took her gloved fingers between his two palms--in the same fashion a loyal subject might have touched his queen's hand.

"That's a great thing you said to me, Miss Kate. I never expected any such honor ever to come to me. I'd crawl through cut gla.s.s and cactus for you. I guess you know it, too, but anything like that would be a mistake, Miss Kate. I ain't in your cla.s.s."

"My cla.s.s!" bitterly. "What is my cla.s.s? I'm in one by myself--I don't belong anywhere." She paused a moment, then went on: "We needn't pretend to love each other--we're not hypocrites, but we understand each other, our interests are the same, we are good friends, at least, and in the experiment there might be something better than our present existence."

"I want to see you happy," he replied slowly. "I haven't any other wish, and, right or wrong, I'll do anything you say, but I'm as sh.o.r.e as we're settin' here that you'll never find it with me. I thought--I hoped that Disston feller--"

She interrupted sharply:

"Don't, Bowers, don't!"

Understanding grew in his troubled eyes as he looked at her quivering chin and mouth.

"So that was it!" he reflected.

Thick volumes of smoke rolled up from the engine attached to the mixed train that stood on the side-track which paralleled the shipping corrals at Prouty, to sink again in the heavy atmosphere presaging a storm. The clouds were leaden and sagged with the weight of snow about to fall.

Teeters's cattle bawled in the three front cars and the remaining "double deckers" were being loaded with Kate Prentice's sheep. She had followed her early judgment in cutting down the number of her sheep for a hard winter and, in consequence, the engine had steam up to haul the longest stock train that had ever pulled out of Prouty.

Bowers and his helpers were crowding the sheep up the runway into the last car when Kate rode up. She looked with pride at the ma.s.s of broad woolly backs as she sat with her arms folded on the saddle horn and thought to herself that if there were any better range sheep going into Omaha she would like to see them. She had made no mistake when she had graded up her herds with Rambouillets.

Bowers saw her and left the chute.

"Teeters is sick," he announced, coming up.

Kate's face grew troubled. She and Teeters had shipped together ever since they had had anything to ship, for it had been mutually advantageous in many ways; but particularly to herself, since he looked after her interests and saved her the necessity of making the trip to the market herself.

"Somethin' he's et," Bowers vouchsafed. "The doctor says it's pantomime pizenin', or some sech name--anyhow, he's plenty sick."

"Where is he?"

Bowers nodded across the flat where they had been holding the sheep while waiting for their cars.

Kate swung her horse about and galloped for the tent where Teeters lay groaning in his blankets on the ground.

Teeters was ill indeed--a glance told her that--and there was not the remotest chance that he would be able to leave with the train.

"I guess I'll be all right by the time they're ready to pull out," he groaned.

Kate made her decision quickly.

"I'll go myself. You're too sick. You get to the hotel and go to bed."