appeared, had been chiefly with the cattle of other men, to such extent that he had been mewed up a certain number of years in the state's corral to break him of the habit.
This had left a bitterness and vengeful spirit in his daughter, Cattle Kate, who was now the avowed encmy of every cattle baron between the Elk Mountains and the Black Hills. So much Dan thought necessary to tell his friend, to post him against any eccentricities of the young lady which were pretty sure to spring from her hot and handy tongue.
For all cowpunchers and grangers Cattle Kate had the hand of hospitality always extended. There was nothing in her stock a cowpuncher couldn't have, money or no money; his word was as good as a baron's bond. But if a crook tried to beat her, Cattle Kate was better than a lawyer at collecting. She had a little brassbound code of her own. Dan declared with all solemnity that she could clip a man's ear at forty feet and never muss his hair.
From this picturesque preparation Barrett expected to meet something more she-devilish than appeared in a little white apron at the partition door behind which the tables of the dining-room were to be seen. Cattle Kate was a stocky young woman of perhaps twenty-eight, with a buffalo-like look about her head and shoulders. Her face was broad and masculine, her skin fair and freckled; her heavy black hair, ringletted like shavings from a carpenter's plane, was cut to fall to the nape of her neck. It was held back from her forehead by a long, curved comb, called a roach-comb in
