f the neighborhood's cheap
restaurants. The night clerk was already on duty and through the
fly-specked plate-glass window of the office saw her coming. Dashing
from behind the desk, he skated recklessly across the tiles to open the
door.

"Say--you're all right!" His tone was emphatic and sincere.

Kate eyed him without enthusiasm.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he demanded.

"Tell you what?"

He held up the afternoon newspaper that he had in his hand.

Kate's own face looked back at her from the front page and her name in
the headlines met her astonished eyes. The picture, which had been made
from a snapshot, was excellent, and the text was a highly colored
recital of her achievements obtained from Bowers.

The clerk's tone conveyed his admiration as he confessed:

"Looks like you knew what you was talkin' about when you said I'd know
who you was before you left Omaha."

Sitting on the edge of her bed Kate read the article again, but her
first feeling of elation did not return. With her hands clasped about
one knee, in her characteristic attitude, she stared at a festoon of
dusty cobwebs hanging from the ceiling, and there gradually crept over
her a feeling of lassitude.

She had established a record price with the best trainload of range
sheep that ever had come into the stockyards; she had been accepted as
an equal in achievement and intelligence by every one of the worthwhile
men with whom she had come in contact; and as a climax to the day's
events she was proclaimed a successful woman in the public prints. Yet,
in the silence of the cheerless room, she was cognizant of the fact that
nothing inside of her was changed thereby. There remained in her heart
the same dreary emptiness.

Two tears slipped slowly down her cheeks. She brushed them away with the
back of her hand, looked at her watch, and got up. She had no appetite,
but ordering food in a restaurant would help the time to pass. After
rubbing such mud as she could from her boots, she smoothed her hair
before the mirror and put on her hat. The sheep woman was the cynosure
of the respectful gaze of many eyes as she came down the stairs.

Outside all the world was going home with eager, hurrying feet and she
paused, looking indifferently up and down the street. The nearest
restaurant was not inviting, but it answered well enough. After a few
mouthfuls, Kate crumpled the paper napkin, paid her bill, and walked
dispiritedly back to the hotel.

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