of a car of the
cattle train and swung his lantern. Instinctively Kate and the man with
whom she had collided looked at each other in the arc of light. In their
haste they had scarcely slackened their steps, and it was only a
second's glimpse that each had of the other's face, but it was long
enough to give to each a sense of bewildered surprise. The look they had
exchanged was the look one man gives to another--level, fearless--for
there never was anything of coquetry in Kate's gaze, and the impression
she had received was of poise, patience and worldly wisdom tinged with a
sadness in which there was no bitterness.

The man walked on a pace, stopped and swung about 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-rate and shabby, unpretentious even in its
prime, but it looked imposing to Kate, who never had seen anything
better than the Prouty House.

The loose tiling clacked as she walked across the office to the clerk