Free The Wrong Woman by Charles D Stewart

admirers,
sitting and lounging about in the seductive odor of new-mown leather. The
saddler, happily busied among his patterns and punches and embossing-tools,
turned at times and peered over the rims of his spectacles in evident
satisfaction. The heavy stock saddle, its quantities of leather all richly
beflowered, was mounted on a trestle beside him. It was so near completion that
the long saddle-strings now hung down in pairs all round, and these thongs,
being of lighter-colored leather, and sprouting out of the hearts of embossed
primroses, looked quite as if they were the natural new growth of that springin
fact the whole flourishing affair might have been expected to put on a few more
layers of leather out of its own powers of luxuriance. But there was nothing
superfluous about it.
    "What do you think of it, Al?" asked one of the company.
    Todd looked it over, the broad hair girths fore and aft, the big cinch rings
and strong stirrup straps. The stirrups were missing. His eye sought the hooks
and pegs over the workbench.
    "Do them things go on it?" he asked, pointing an accusing finger.
    Hanging on the wall was a pair of Mexican tapaderas deep hooded
stirrups with a great superfluity of leather extending below as if they were
wings for the feet.
    "Oh! no, no, no," said the saddler, turning hastily and holding up his hand
as if to quell this mental disturbance before it had gone too far. "These go on
itthese." He held out a pair of plain wooden hoops.
    Todd's countenance rearranged itself at once.
    "She's a jim-dandy," said Todd.
    With this verdict rendered, he seated himself on a chair which had a nail-keg
for legs and gave his attention to the principal speaker as he resumed his
account of a roping-match. The story was rather long, showing how it was that
the best man did n't win.
    In the ensuing silence Todd found his opportunity to speak.
    "I just heard something," he said. "Steve Brown is herding sheep."
    "That's nothing," said the story-teller. "He done that a couple of times
before."
    "And they say there is a woman out there with him," added Todd.
    "A woman! What woman?"
    "I don't know. Tuck Reedy rode past and saw them sitting by the fire. Ed
Curtis saw her too."
    "Whose sheep's he herdin'?" asked big Tom Brodie.
    "I don't know anything about the sheep. He's out there tending them. And
she's out there with him."
    "I know what he's doing with them," said Harry Lee. "He's administrating
them."
    "What have they got?" inquired big Tom.
    "Who's got what?"
    "What is it that's ailin' them? I say, what have they got ?" repeated
Tom assertively, being a little in liquor.
    "They have n't got anything. I said he is administrating them. When a man
dies, the court chooses somebody that's reliable to settle up what he leaves.
And this other fellow sees that everything is tended to and done on the square.
They were John Clarkson's sheep, and they belong to his little boy. He is
administrating them."
    "Huh!" grunted Tom, whose untutored mind now needed a rest.
    "But how about this woman?" asked Frank Sloan.
    "She's turned her horse out to grass; and she's out there with him. Just him
and her. All alone."
    "Pshaw!" said Harry Lee. "They ain't alone. How could Tuck Reedy tell she was
alone just by the light of the fire? There might have been somebody in the
shack. Or behind it."
    "And maybe the horse had just pulled up his stake-rope," said another.
    "Or maybe the horse had hobbles on," added another.
    " Did n't I tell you Ed Curtis saw the same woman? " said Todd, now
growing assertive. "And she was going out there alone. And if there was anybody
else around would n't they be eating supper with them? And if a horse was
dragging a stake-rope would n't Tuck Reedy know it?"
    To make the matter unquestionable he now started at the very beginning and
told it all, going into details and pointing out how one witness corroborated
another.
    "You say she wore a felt hat? And was light-haired?"
    "Yes. It