“Maudlin! And weak! And inefficient!” Kate interrupted savagely. “It distracts your thoughts and dissipates your energy. It impairs your judgment, lessens your will power. It’s for persons who have no ambition or who have achieved it. For the struggler there’s nothing worth bothering with that doesn’t take him forward.”
“That’s a pretty cold-blooded doctrind,” declared the shocked herder. “If 'twant for love—”
“If 'twant for love,” Kate mimicked harshly, “you wouldn’t be indulging in a spell of homesickness and leaving your sheep to the coyotes! Sentiment is lovely in books, but it’s expensive in business, so I’m going to fire you. Bowers will be here with the supply wagon to-morrow, so I’ll take the sheep until he can relieve me. I’ll pay you off and you can walk back to the ranch or,” grimly, “take a short cut through the Pass up there—to ‘Nebrasky.’”
CHAPTER XVIII
A WARNING
“I can’t hold dem ewes and lambs on de bed-ground no more! Dey know it’s time to be gettin’ up to deir summer range; nobody has to tell a sheep when to move on.”
The Swede swirled his little round hat on his equally round little head and winked rapidly as he gave vent to his indignant protest. Kate looked at him in silence for a moment and then said in sudden decision:
“You can start to-morrow, Oleson.”