THE SHEEP QUEEN
abruptly. Evidently he could see nothing in the darkness — he could hear only the retreating footsteps on the cinder path. Then suddenly, aloud, sharply, out of his bewilderment he cried:
"By God! That woman looks like me!"
Kate and Bowers walked on without comment upon the incident, but when they had reached the yard. Bowers detached himself from Kate's side and made a rush to the nearest light where, turning his back with a secretive air, he took from the inner pocket of his inside coat the worn and yellowed photograph that Mullendore had recognized in Bowers's wagon. He looked at it long and hard.
Kate was too engrossed in directing and helping with the work of unloading, counting the sheep that had smothered, looking after those that had been injured in transit, feeding, watering, to be conscious of the attention she attracted among the helpers and others in the yards.
There had been " sheep queens " in the stockyards before -raucous-voiced, domineering, sexless, inflated to absurdity by their success — but none with Kate's personal attractiveness and her utter lack of self-consciousness. As she walked about on the long platform beside the pens, tall, straight, picturesque, with her free movements, her wide gestures when she used her hands, together with her quiet air of authority, she was the most typical and interesting figure that had come out of the far west for a long time.
When the last thing was done that required her personal attention, Kate went to a nearby hotel recommended
by one of the employees of the stockyard. It was third
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