At noon of the day after Kate’s visit to the store at Cordova, she sat in the big living-room at Sky Line looking over accounts. An observer having seen her on the previous occasion, would hardly have recognized her now. Gone were the broad hat, the pearl-buttoned shirt, the fringed riding skirt and the boots.
The black hair was piled high on her head, its smooth backward sweep crinkled by the tight curl that would not be brushed out. There was fragrance about her, and the dress she wore was of dark blue flowered silk, its clever draping setting off her form to its best advantage, which needed no advantage. Silk stockings smoothed themselves lovingly over her slender ankles, and soft kid slippers, all vanity of cut and make and sparkling buckle, clothed her feet in beauty.
She was either a fool or very brave, for she was the living spirit of seduction.
But the sombre eyes she turned up from her work to scan the rider who came to her, his hat in his hands, were all business, impersonal.
“Well?” she said impatiently.
The man was young, scarce more than a boy, of a devil-may-care type, and he looked at her fearlessly.
“Here’s something for you, Boss,” he said grinning, as he handed her a soiled bit of paper.
It was thin, yellowed with age, and it seemed to have been roughly handled.
The mistress of Sky Line spread it out before her on the top of the dark wood desk.
“The Lord is the strength of my life,” she read, “of whom shall I be afraid? Though an host shall encamp against me, my heart shall not fear.”