The Flockmaster of Poison Creek

oved a step to reach and lay the plate on a table close at hand. As she lifted her foot there was the sharp clink of metal, as of a dragging chain. Mackenzie had heard it before when she stepped nearer the door, and now he bent to look into the shadow that fell over the floor from the flaring bottom of the lantern.

"Madam," said he, indignantly amazed by the barbarous thing he beheld, "does that man keep you a prisoner here?"

"Like a dog," she said, nodding her untidy head, lifting her foot to show him the chain.

It was a common trace-chain from plow harness; two of them, in fact, welded together to give her length to go about her household work. She had a freedom of not more than sixteen feet, one end of the chain welded about her ankle, the other set in a staple driven into a log of the wall. She had wrapped the links with cloths to save her flesh, but for all of that protection she walked haltingly, as if the limb were sore.

"I never heard of such inhuman treatment!" Mackenzie d