chin came from the
other side, as did her height. Already she was half a head taller than
the short, wiry, tough-fibered woman with the small hard features who
was known throughout the southern half of Wyoming as "Jezebel of the
Sand Coulee."

A long flat braid of fair hair swung below the girl's waist and on her
cheeks a warm red showed through the golden tan. Her slim straight
figure was eloquent of suppleness and strength and her movements, quick,
purposeful, showed decision and activity of mind. They were as
characteristic as her directness of speech.

The Sand Coulee Roadhouse was a notorious place. The woman who kept it
called herself Isabel Bain--Bain having been the name of one of the
numerous husbands from whom she had separated to remarry in another
state, without the formality of a divorce. She was noted not only for
her remarkable horsemanship, but for her exceptional handiness with a
rope and branding iron, and her inability to distinguish her neighbors'
livestock from her own.

"Pete Mullendore's gettin' in." There was a frown on Kate's face as she
spoke and uneasiness in the glance she sent toward the string of
pack-horses filing along the fence.

The woman said warningly, "Don't you pull off any of your tantrums--you
treat him right."

"I'll treat him right," hotly, "as long as he behaves himself. Mother,"
with entreaty in her voice, "won't _you_ settle him if he gets fresh?"

Jezebel only laughed and as the gate of the corral scraped when
Mullendore pulled it open to herd a saddle horse and pack ponies
through, she called out in her harsh croak:

"Hello, Pete!"

"Hello yourself," he answered, but he looked at her daughter.

As soon as they were through the gate the pack ponies stopped and stood
with spreading legs and drooping heads while Mullendore sauntered over
to Kate and laid a hand familiarly on her shoulder.

"Ain't you got a howdy for me, kid?"

She moved aside and began stripping the harness from the horse for the
quite evident purpose of avoiding his touch.

"You'd better get them packs off," she replied, curtly. "Looks like
you'd got on three hundred pounds."

"Wouldn't be surprised. Them bear traps weigh twenty poun' each, and
green hides don't feel like feathers, come to pack 'em over the trail
I've come."

Kate looked at him for the first time.

"I wisht I was a man! I bet I'd work you over for the way you abuse your
stock!"

Mullendore laughed.

"Glad you ain't, Ka