Life was pleasant for Nettie Day at the Bar Q, where, in the pink and white gingham house dresses supplied by Mrs. Langdon, she looked prettier every day.
The clean and spacious ranch house, shining with sunlight, was a revelation to the girl who had lived all of her life in the two rooms of the poor shack with her parents and her nine little brothers and sisters.
It flattered the vanity of Bull Langdon to have a "show place" on the Banff National Highway. He had built the main ranch house upon the crest of a hill that commanded the road to Banff, and the wide, rambling buildings, ornate in design and brightly painted, had been placed where they would show up well from the road, so that all who traveled along the highway would slow up for a view of the Bar Q.
Nettie's advent was both a surprise and a joy to the wife of the cattleman, who took a childish pride in at last "keeping a girl."
For a number of years the Bar Q had maintained a cook car, whither the "hands" went for "grub." It was on such a vehicle that Angela Loring had served. Now a thin and musty smelling Chinaman dominated the car, a shrinking, silent figure, who banged down the chow before the men, and paid no heed to protest or squabble, save when the "boss" came in, when Chum Lee became frenziedly busy. In winter, the Chinaman was moved to the Pure-Bred Bull camp at Barstairs, and the men left at the foothill ranch, "batched" in the bunkhouses.
Though the main cooking was done on the cook car, there yet remained an enormous amount of work at the ranch house, for besides the housework, the bread and butter for the ranch were made there by Mrs. Langdon. She "put down" the pork in brine, cured and smoked it; made hundreds of pounds of lard, sausage meat, headcheese, corned beef and other meat products. She made the soap, looked after the poultry and vegetable garden, she canned quantities of fruit and vegetables for the winter months. She was always working, always running hither and thither about the house, hurrying to "have things ready," for her husband had a greedy appetite, and her mind was exclusively occupied indevising ways and means of propitiating and pacifying him.
Of late, however, her health had been visibly failing. The long years of hard work, the tragedy of the yearly still-born baby, life and association with the overbearing cattleman had gradually taken their toll of the strength of Bull Langdon's wife.
Bull was what is known in the cattle world as a "night rider." In the earlier days it was said he did all of his "dirty work" at night, moving and driving bunches of cattle under cover of darkness. Rivalry, strife and bitter enmity are a commonplace of life in the cattle country, and the Bull vented his vindictive spite upon his neighbors by slipping their herds out of pastures and corrals, and driving them over the tops of canyon and precipice. Those incursions were, however, events of the past. The cowman was cautious now that he had arrived at a place of security and power. Rustling and stealing were dangerous undertakings in those days when the trails had turned into highways, and small ranches were beginning to dot the edges of the range. Moreover, the mounted police were less easy to influence and intimidate than the former Indian agents had been.
Night riding had remained one of his habits, however, and one that told heavily upon the wife, who would always wait up for his return, with supper always ingratiatingly ready.
For some time symptoms of a coming breakdown had been ominously evident to Mrs. Langdon, but she persistently fought against the prospect of becoming an invalid. She had an ingenuous faith, imbibed from tracts and books that had drifted into her hands in her teaching days; she denied the existence of evil, pain or illness in the world, and when it pushed its ugly fist into her face, or wracked her frail body, she had a little formula that she bravely recited over and over again, like an incantation, in which she asserted that it was an error; that she was in the best of health, and that everything in the world was good and beautiful and in the image of God. Whether she deluded herself or not, it is certain that this desperate philosophy, if such it could be called, was the crutch that had upheld her and kept her sane throughout the turbulent years of her life with Bull Langdon, so that she had never lost her faith in mankind, and had remained curiously innocent of wrong.
She hailed Nettie's coming, therefore, as a"demonstration" of her faith, and welcomed the strong, willing, cheerful girl with a grateful heart and open arms.
It was pleasant for a change, to take things easy; to have all the heavier work done by the tall, competent girl, and, better than the relief from the hard labor, was the companionship of another woman in the ranch house. Only a woman who has been isolated long from her own sex can appreciate what it means when another woman comes into her life.
Nettie would place a rocking chair for her mistress on the back veranda, bring the basket of mending, and with her slow, shy smile, say:
"Now, Mrs. Langdon, you fall to on them socks, and leave me to do the work."
This Mrs. Langdon would do, and Nettie would bring her work on to the veranda, the one sewing or crocheting, the other churning and working the butter, kneading the bread or preparing the vegetables for the day. Work thus became a pleasure, and Mrs. Langdon's soft voice chattering of many happy topics made a pleasant accompaniment to their work. If Nettie went indoors to work, Mrs. Langdon soon followed her. She took pride in teaching Nettie her own special recipes, and they would both laugh and exclaim over the mistakesor success of the girl, who was all eagerness to learn. Slowly a feeling warmer than mere friendship drew the two women together.
Although it was against the rules for the Bar Q "hands" to come to the ranch house, save when summoned by the Bull, or on some special errand, Nettie's presence there was widely known and commented upon, and many were the ingenious devices invented by the men to obtain a sight of or a word with the girl. Bull, however, was more than ever on the watch for an infraction of this rule, and more than one employee found himself fired for loitering in the neighborhood of the ranch house or suffered the indignity and pain of a blow from the boss's heavy hand. Harvest time came at last to the prairie, where Bull Langdon had a great grain ranch, and thither the owner of the Bar Q departed to superintend the harvesting operations.
From time immemorial lovers have found a way to meet, and Cyril and Nettie were not long in solving their own problem.
Nettie Would slip from the house after supper, for Mrs. Langdon went early to bed, as farmers do. Between the house and a clump of willows there was a small field, behind it a deep coulee, where the wildraspberries and gooseberries grew in profusion. There, hidden by the thick growth, Nettie would go to pick berries, stopping ever and anon to listen for a sound that only she and Cyril understood, the long-drawn whistle that was like the call of an oriole. At the sound of that musical note, Nettie would stop picking, and, with parted lips, shining eyes and beating heart, she would wait for her lover to come to her in the deep bush.
This was the season when the daylight lingered far into the night; when the soft light of the late sun lay romantically upon the still and sleeping land. Young Cyril and Nettie would sit on a knoll, with the berry bushes all about and above and below them, and with clasped hands, thrilling at each other's nearness, they would murmur their joyful confidences and hopes.
Cyril was what the country folk would have described as "slow" with girls, and Nettie was as innocent as a child. She had never had companions of her own age, not even a girl friend, and Cyril was her first "beau." This simple holding of hands was rapture for these two, an exciting adventure that made them tremble with a vague longing for something more. With the clumsy shyness of the country boy who has known no women, it had taken Cyril two weeks to find courage and powerto put his arm awkwardly about the girl's waist. That daring progress, full of joyous excitement, was the prelude to something he had not foreseen. The close pressure of the girl's warm young body against his, the involuntary raising of her face, as it almost touched his own, brought the inevitable consequence. For the first time in either of their lives they kissed. Lost in that single, ever closer embrace, time and place, knowledge of all else on earth, vanished from their minds as, amidst the dense berry bushes, they clung ecstatically together.
Upon their blissful dream, a harsh voice broke. Even as they drew apart, still heavy with the lassitude of the new rapture they had but just discovered, they dimly recognized the voice of Bull Langdon. From somewhere in the direction of the corrals, he was calling for his "hands." They could hear him cursing, and knew he must have ridden up noiselessly, and annoyed at finding no one about the place was venting his temper in this fashion.
"Oh, my!" murmured Nettie, drawing half out of Cyril's arms and unconsciously leaning towards him, "he'll be wantin' you, Cyril."
"Let'm want," said the boy, hungry again to feelthe touch of those warm lips upon his own. "I'm not workin' nights for no man, and if he ain't satisfied, I guess I can quit any old time now. You say the word when, Nettie. I'm ready for you, girl. And Nettie—give us another kiss, will you?"
"Oh, Cyril, I got to get to the house. Mrs. Langdon's gone to bed, and he'll be lookin' for something to eat, and it's not her place to get his meals when I'm here to do the work."
"You won't have to work for no one but me soon, Nettie. I'll take care of you for the rest of your days. Nettie, I never kissed a girl before. That is true as God."
"Neither did I—never kissed a fellow."
"Kiss me again, then."
This time she remained in his arms for a moment only as the clamorous voice of Bull Langdon was heard close at hand, his words, causing Nettie to tear herself away in fear.
"Where's that gell? Why ain't she on her job?"
Nettie clambered up the slope of the coulees and went running across the grass to the house. As she paused at the wide opened door, her basket still on her arm, Bull Langdon, now in his seat, his legs stretchedout before him, turned around to stare at her, his fierce, covetous glance, as always, holding her fascinated and breathless with vague terror.
"Where've ye been at this early hour of the night?"
"I been picking berries," faltered Nettie, trying vainly to steady her voice.
"Oh, you have, heh?"
Her cheeks were redder than any berries that ever grew and her eyes shone star bright. Her white bosom rose and fell with the thrill of her late adventure and her sudden fear.
"Pickin' berries in the night, huh? You're smart, ain't you?"
"Oh, yes, it was light as day you see and I don't mind——"
"Let's see what you got."
He reached out seemingly for the basket, but his hand closed over the handle upon hers. Gripping it tightly with his other hand he lifted the cover and peered into the empty basket.
"Let go my hand!" she cried in a stifled voice. "You're hurtin' me!"
For answer he possessed himself of the other and steadily drew her nearer and nearer to him. Shestruggled and twisted in his grasp, suppressing her desire to scream for fear that her mistress might hear. But, in fact, it was the clip clop of Mrs. Langdon's loose bedroom slippers on the stairs that brought her release.
Mrs. Langdon, her hair in paper curlers and with a gray flannellete kimono thrown over her night dress, hurried down the stairs.
"Oh, Bill—" She was the only person who never called him "Bull"—"is it you? Are you back? I'm so sorry I didn't hear you get in or I'd a been down at once. We'll have something ready for you in a minute. Nettie, bring some of that fresh headcheese, and cut it from the new bowl, mind you, and maybe Mr. Langdon'd like something to drink too. You made butter today, didn't you? Well, bring some fresh buttermilk, or maybe you'd like something hot to drink. Which'd you rather have, Bill?"
He never replied to her many light questions and she seldom expected him to. She nodded and smiled at Nettie and the girl hurried to the pantry. Mrs. Langdon fluttered about her husband, helping him to remove his heavy riding boots and coat, and putting away his hat and gauntlets. He endured herministrations, but in spite of her chatter and numerous questions he remained curiously silent. When Nettie brought the tray with its fresh cut homemade headcheese and thick layer cake and buttermilk he drew up before it and ate in a sort of absorbed silence.
"Will you be wanting me any more tonight, Mrs. Langdon?" asked Nettie.
"No, Nettie, thank you. Run along to bed. If Mr. Langdon needs anything else I'll get it. Good-night, dear."
Bull, having finished the last of the food before him, reached for his boots and began again to pull them on.
"Oh, Bill, you're not goin' out again, are you?" exclaimed Mrs. Langdon with nervous anxiety.
He tightened his belt without speaking, his big chest swelling under his moosehide shirt. Spurs rattling, he tramped across the room and out into the yard.
At the bunkhouse lights were out and all hands save one abed. Cyril sat on the edge of his bunk, still dressed, chin cupped in his hands, giving himself up to his dreams.
The great bulk of the cattleman filled the doorway.His forefinger up, he beckoned to Cyril. The young man stood up and with a glance back at his sleeping mates he joined his employer outside the bunkhouse.
Clenched hands on hips, a characteristic attitude, the Bull scrutinized in the now steadily deepening dusk of the night the young fellow sturdily and coolly facing him, apparently unmoved and unafraid.
"Want chu to be ready first thing in the morning to ride over to Barstairs. Want chu to git them bulls in shape for the circuit. Goin' to exhibit in St. Louis, Kansas City, Chicago, San Francisco and other cities in the States. You do well by the bunch here and there's a bonus on your pay and you go along with the herd to the U. S."
Until this night the unexpected promotion would have elated Cyril. Now, in spite of his astonishment, he hesitated, and in his slow Scotch way turned the matter over in his mind. After a moment he said:
"I don't know as I want the job, boss. Fact is, I'm thinkin' of quittin'. Thinkin' of goin' on my own."
"On your own! You ain't got nothin' to go on your own with."
"I got my homestead. House's built, land partly fenced. I traded in my cattle for implements and Igot six head of horses left, and that's not too bad as a starter."
"How far d'you think you can git on that much unless you got a stake behind you?"
The young man weighed this question thoughtfully and carefully. A bit sadly he replied:
"Not very far, but it'll do as a starter, and next year——"
"Next year ain't here yet. Besides it depends on what you're countin' on. You aimin' to get married?"
Somehow the question infuriated the Bull so that he shot it at the boy, despite his effort at self-control and his eyes blazed through the darkness. But Cyril was too absorbed in his own dreams to note the Bull's voice or manner. After a pause he answered slowly.
"Yes."
"You can't raise no family on what you got now," said the Bull hoarsely. "Things ain't the same as when I started in. You better wait a year or two. Take on this proposition I'm offerin' you and you'll be in better shape to do the right thing by the gell you marry then. There's a ten dollar a month raise for you and a bonus of a hundred at the end of the season."
A long pause, as this sunk into Cyril, and he slowly weighed the matter in his mind. A few months more or less would matter little to him and Nettie. The money would mean a lot. There were certain articles he had set his heart on buying for Nettie for the house, household utensils, of which a country traveling salesman, who had put up overnight at the Bar Q, had shown him enticing samples. Soon his mind was made up.
"Maybe you're right, boss. I'm on. Barstairs, eh? I'll be on the job first thing in the morning."
But when he rode out in the quiet dawn, with no one but Jake to bid him good-by, Cyril's heart was heavy, and as he went by the ranch house his glance sought Nettie's window, in the vain hope that she might by some chance be up and in sight. He had given Jake a message for her and felt sure that she would understand. It was a common occurrence for riders to be despatched on such trips as this, and Cyril was of a race that always puts duty before pleasure. Farsighted and canny, he was prepared to serve and wait an extra year if need be for the girl he loved.
At the thought of that future, shared with Nettie, his heart lifted. The grayness of the approachingdawn grew slowly lighter and the miracle of the sunrise broke over the sleeping land. Far and wide on all sides stretched an incomparable sky, a shadowy, gilded loveliness, as if a misty veil were slowly being unrolled till there burst into full bloom the marvelous sunglow of Alberta. Cyril's spirits rose with the sun and as his horse loped along the trail to Barstairs he lifted up his young voice and sang.
The days were getting longer. The fall round-up was under way and the Bull rode the range with his men. For a week long files of cattle had been pouring down from the hills to meet in the lower pastures of the ranch and automatically form into symmetrical rank that moved lowing before the drivers to the corrals and pens where they were sorted over and separated.
It was a period of torture for the cattle for the Bar Q branded, dehorned and weaned in the early fall. Day and night the incessant crying of over two thousand calves and outraged mothers, penned in separate fields or corrals, rent the air.
The round-up was an early and swift one that year for Bull Langdon was due to leave in early November for the States with his purebred bulls. He seemed possessed of inexhaustible energy and vitality and no amount of riding appeared to tire him. It was no uncommon thing for him after a night and day of riding to bring up finally at the ranch house at midnightand sit down to the big meal prepared by the girl whom he would summon with a thump upon her door. Little conversation passed between them at these times, but once when the cattleman had volunteered the information that they were about through Nettie said, with apparent relief:
"Then there will be no more branding. I'm glad of that."
The cattleman leaned across the table, his elbows upon it and a knife and fork in either hand. His meaning glance pinned the girl fairly.
"One more head," he said. "I'll put my personal brand upon that maverick before I go."
She felt as if an icy hand were clutching at her heart.
The following day she was sent to Morley, an Indian trading post, where was the nearest post office for the Bar Q mail. It was eight miles from the ranch and Nettie went on horseback, returning in about two and a half hours, in time to get the supper.
There was no one about the place when she rode into the corrals. Dismounting, she unsaddled her horse, hung bridle and saddle in the barn, and let the horse out to pasture. Hurrying to the house she found thebig kitchen deserted. Usually when the girl went off on long errands Mrs. Langdon prepared the supper, but Nettie supposed her mistress was taking her afternoon nap. So she busied herself with the preparation of the supper. She peeled the potatoes and set them on the range, quickly beat up a pan of buttermilk biscuits and put them in the oven. Her table set, she sliced the cold meat and put the kettle on for tea.
Having finished, and there being still no sign of Mrs. Langdon, she ran upstairs and tapped upon her door. There was no reply. Nettie opened the door and looked in. The room was empty and the wide-open closet door revealed the fact that it had been stripped.
A wave of fear swept over the girl; she ran panting downstairs and out into the barnyard. Not a "hand" was about, though far across the pastures she could see the fence riders riding toward the ranch, their day's work done. Jake, driving in the six milk cows, came over the crest of the hill and loped slowly down to the barnyard, stopping to water his horse. He did not see Nettie at first waiting for him at the cowshed and when he did began to jabber without dismounting. One by one the cows went into their stalls and stood, bags full, patiently waiting to be milked. Jake, fullof his news, dismounted. He had a pronounced impediment in his speech and when excited became almost unintelligible.
"Mis' Langdon—her gone off—off—off——" He pointed vividly toward the mountains. "Rode on nortermobile to a station. Goin' far away on train—choo-choo—coo!"
Nettie stared at him blankly. She could barely understand the bare fact that her mistress was gone and in her anxiety she plied the boy with questions.
"Where had she gone? When? Who had gone with her? Why did she go? What had she taken? How long was she to be gone?"
As desperately she shook the half-breed's ragged sleeve in her impatience to make him understand her the honk of an automobile horn caused her to look toward the garage and there she saw the Bull backing in the car. She hurried across the barnyard, her fear of the man forgotten in her intense anxiety about her mistress.
In his characteristic pose at the wide door of the garage he awaited her approach.
"Is—is it true that Mrs. Langdon has gone away?"
"Yep. Just taken her to the station. Gone up to Banff."
"Banff! Will she be gone for long?"
She hardly realized that her lips were quivering and her eyes were so full of tears that she could not see the strange expression on the Bull's face as he looked down gloatingly upon her.
The soft golden sunset was all about them and the brooding hush of the closing day lent a beauty and stillness to the evening that was full of poetry, but the man, with his calculating, bulging eyes, saw nothing but her softly maturing loveliness, the rounded curve of her bosom, the white softness of her neck, the rose that came and went in her cheeks, the scarlet lips that aroused in his breast a tormenting passion such as he had never experienced for any woman before.
Nettie repeated her question, her voice catching in the sob that would come despite her best efforts. With the going of both Cyril and her mistress she felt deserted and forlorn.
"Will she be gone long I asked you?"
"Long enough to suit me," said the Bull slowly. "She's took a holiday. Guess she's entitled to one now we've got a gell like you to take her place up to thehouse. I'm thinking you'll fill the bill fine and suit me down to a double T. Is supper ready?"
She stared up at him through the haze before her eyes, piteously, her lips moving, almost as if entreating him. She tried to say:
"It'll be on the table in a few minutes," but the words came indistinctly through the tears which now began to fall heavily in spite of her effort to restrain them. Blindly she moved toward the house, holding her apron to her face. Absorbed in her grief, she was unconscious of the fact that the Bull pressed close to her side and that it was his big hand under her arm that guided her to the house. Inside the kitchen he held her for a space as she gasped and cried:
"I won't stay here alone."
"Yer don't have to, gell," said the Bull huskily. "I'm here."
"You!"
She wrenched her arm free.
"I'm not going to stay in this house alone withyou!" she cried.
"Ain't you? Mebbe you'd prefer the bunkhouses then?"
The Bull was chuckling coarsely.
"I won't stay nowhere at Bar Q. I'm goin' to get out—tonight."
"As you say, gell. I told the wife not to set too much store by you, but no, she'd have her way. Said you could take her place and do the work fine, and she thought she should do as the doctor said and git away for a change."
Nettie paused, the thought of her mistress's confidence in her holding her in her headlong purpose to escape.
"So I could do the work alone. It's not that. It's just that—that I'm afraid to be here alone—with you," she blurted out.
"Far's that goes, I'm hikin' for Barstairs myself tonight. Goin' on up to the Bull camp. We're leavin' for the States shortly, and I got to go alone."
Something was burning on the stove and she rushed to lift off the potatoes. The Bull had seated himself at the table and was buttering a chunk of bread. Nettie hesitated a moment and then, as the man apparently oblivious of or indifferent to her presence continued to munch in abstracted silence, Nettie took her place at the table. She poured out the tea and passed his cup to him, helping herself to a piece of the coldroast pork. The potato dish was to the left of him and after a moment she timidly asked him to pass it to her. He shoved the dish across without looking up and continued to "pack down"—an expression of his own—the food.
The meal came to an end in this strange silence and afterwards she cleared the table and washed the dishes, acutely aware of every move the man made in the big room. He had taken down his sheepskin riding coat and pushed his legs into fur chapps. The spurs clanked as he snapped them onto his heels. He took down the quirt and huge hat hanging to a deer head's horns, clapped the hat upon his head, and tramped to the door. All his preparations indicated a long ride. At the door he threw back an order to Nettie.
"Anyone telephones, I'll reach Barstairs by six or seven in the mornin'. They can get me there. Have Jake at the house for chores. Let 'im sleep off the kitchen."
She nodded dumbly, conscious only of a vast sense of relief. He was gone.
Never had the ranch house seemed so large or so empty. A wave of homesickness overwhelmed the lonely girl, a terrible longing to see her little brothers and sisters, now so widely scattered about the country, and be with them once again.
The days were gradually shortening and when the light faded about ten o'clock darkness closed silently in upon the hill country. Though the days were sunny the nights were very quiet and somewhat chilly.
Nettie Day knelt by her window. She could see the lights in the row of bunkhouses and someone moving about the corrals with a lantern in his hand. How long she knelt by her window she could not have said, but she felt no inclination for sleep and put off preparing for bed as long as possible.
The vast silence of the hills seemed to press down about the place and in the utter stillness of the night the low wailing of a hungry coyote in the hills awakened weird echoes. A healthy, placid girl, nerves had nevertroubled Nettie; yet on that night she experienced a psychic premonition of disaster, and when the depression weighed unbearably down upon her she called to Jake from her window.
Stick on shoulder, the breed came from the kitchen door and grinned up at her in the dusk. Jake was in one of his periods of delusions and as sentry before an Indian war camp he patrolled fearlessly but with catlike caution. His mere presence, however, comforted her, but her cheek blanched as the breed returned to the house, gave a startled cry—the cry of a man struck suddenly. She said to herself:
"Jake's playing! I guess he's shootin' at himself with his old arrows. My, he's a queer one."
Long since the twinkling lights in the bunkhouses had disappeared one by one as the men "turned in." The "hands" of the Bar Q were early risers and "hit the bunks" as soon as the light left the sky.
The last sign of life had vanished. Even the coyote was silent and the darkness grew ever deeper.
Nettie turned from her window at last. Her long plaits of hair hung down, like a Marguerite's, on her shoulders. In her white night dress she looked very virginal and sweet. She had raised her hands andbegun to coil up the golden braids when something—a stealthy, cautious motion—caused her to pause. She stood still in the middle of the room, her eyes wide and startled, staring at the door.
The bureau stood by the door and a lamp burned on it. Slowly the knob turned and she felt something push against the frail door which she had, however, locked.
Though well-nigh paralyzed with fear she found strength to seize her one chair and thrust its back underneath the knob so that its two back legs firmly on the floor might help the now loudly cracking door to resist the force that was slowly pushing it in. She blew out the light and retreated towards the window.
There was the sound of snapping steel and the lock was burst. The upturned chair quivered on its two back feet, held sturdily in place a moment and then splintered under the iron strength of the man without.
As the door gave way a numbness came upon her and, without power to move, like some fascinated thing, she watched the approach of the Bull. She knew that she was trapped and clutching her throat with both hands she tried to force to her lips the cry that would not come.
She was in a black dream, a merciless nightmare.
She awoke, screaming wildly:
"Cyril, Cyril, Cyril! Cyril!Cyril!" and over and over again, "Cyril!"
Like one gone stark mad she groped her way to the window and threw herself out.
When she regained consciousness the bright, hard sun was in her eyes. She stared up at a brilliant blue sky. Jake knelt on the grass beside her and tried to move her to the shadow of the house. She moaned:
"Leave me be. I want to die."
Jake muttered excitedly:
"Him! Him! Him see—him hurt Nettie. Last night him hurt Jake bad."
"Him!" She knew whom Jake meant by "him" and threw up her arm as if to shield herself from a blow. At that moment his shadow loomed above her and she cowered and cringed from it.
"How'd you git here?" He looked up at the window. "You got to cut out this damn nonsense. I ain't aimin' to hurt you, but you can't lay out here. Here, I'll carry you into the house. Keep still, will yer? D'you want me to tie you?"
Her struggles ceased. Eyes closed, she submitted limply as he lifted her in his arms and carried her tothe house. Jake followed, wringing his hands and whimpering like a dog.
On the fourth day, holding to the bannisters, she managed to limp downstairs. For a long time she sat on the hard kitchen chair, staring with unseeing eyes before her. Even when she heard the heavy tramp of the Bull's feet on the outside porch she did not raise her head and as he came in her hopeless gaze remained still fixed on space.
"Hello! Whatchu doin' down here? How'd you get down here?"
"I come down myself," said Nettie listlessly. "My ankle ain't hurtin' me no more."
"I'd a' carried you down if you asked me," he grunted angrily. "I done everything a man could for a girl. Who's been waiting on you hand and foot these last four days just's if you was a delicate lady instead of a hired girl on a ranch. What more d'you want? The more you do for some folks the more they want."
Nettie said nothing, but two great tears suddenly rolled out of her eyes and splashed slowly down her cheeks. She resented those tears—a sign of weakness, where she felt hard and frozen within, and she peevishly brushed them away.
"What you cryin' about?"
"I jus' want that you should let me alone," said Nettie.
"You'll be let alone soon enough now. I got to go to Barstairs, and I got to go on to the States. We're billed up at the fairs over there, and I got to go along with my bulls. I'd take you with me if it wasn't for that young buck at Barstairs. I ain't plannin' on sharing you with no one, do you get me? You belong to Bull Langdon. I got you at the sale, same's I got the rest of your dad's old truck, and what the Bull gets his hands on he keeps. It's up to yourself how you git treated. I'm free handed with them that treats me right. My old woman ain't strong. She'll croak one of these days and 'twon't be long before they'll be another Mrs. Langdon at Bar Q. You treat the Bull right and you'll be the second Mrs. Langdon."
Nettie twisted her hands in her apron. Her heart ached dully and at the mention of her mistress's name a fierce lump rose persistently in her throat.
"Well, what you got to say to that?"
She did not answer and he pursued wrathfully:
"You're sulking now and you're sore on me, but you'll get over that, gell. I'll knock it out of yoursystem damn soon if you don't, and you'll find out that it'll pay you to be on the right side of the Bull rather than the wrong."
"I ain't aiming to make you mad," said Nettie piteously, shrinking under the implied threat. He chuckled, relishing his power.
"Well, I'll be off. If it weren't for them bulls nothing could take me from you now, gell, but I ain't fool enough to neglect mybullsfor a gell. I'm goin' along with the herd far as St. Louis, and I'll be back to you before the month is out."
His big lips closed over hers. The loathsome embrace seemed to strangle her. Then she was alone again.
She sat in the kitchen for more than an hour after the departure of the Bull, still in that attitude of stupefied apathy, then limped upstairs, into her room, closed the battered door, and sat down on the edge of her bed, holding her head in her hands. She had no feeling save that of intense weariness and dead despair. Presently, still dressed, she fell sideways upon the bed and slept the long, unbroken sleep of one physically and mentally exhausted.
Part of journal kept by Lady Angella Loring: I hate men and despise women. I am afraid of children. Animals are my only friends.
I'm not pretty. My face is hard, my hair—what is left of it—of no color. My hands are calloused. I am a "tough old nut" as once I heard a "hand" of the Bar Q describe me. I wear men's clothes because they are comfortable and because I want to forget that I am a woman.
My father was the victim of a swindler, a smiling-faced, lying-tongued scoundrel, who robbed him of all we possessed in the world. The man I was to have married was as surely my father's murderer as if he had held the hand that sent the shot through my father's brain that killed him. I am the last of the Lorings, I—the poor old man-maid recluse, on the edge of Yankee Valley in the Canadian Northwest.
This bit of Alberta land is all that is left of theonce vast Loring estate. That I still have this is due purely to the accident of a groom paying back a debt he owed my father. It was strange that I should have learned of its existence at a time when I believed that the end had come for me even as it had come for my father. True, I was not to go out of life by the act of my own hand and will. A quite eminent scientist had pronounced my death sentence. He gave me a few months in which to live. It was a ghastly situation for one who had been through what I had and who desired to live for the noble purpose of revenge. That sounds melodramatic and I suppose if I were pious I would hear in mind that revenge is sweet only for God. But my nature is not sweet and hell raged within me at that time. It was strange, as I have said, at that time suddenly to learn of the existence of this ranch. I seemed to see it as in a dream—it lay far off under a spotlight of Alberta sunlight and it called to me with a clarion call.
I came out here. I am hard and strong. I don't intend to die. I've something to live for. Not aman. I hate men, as I have said above. I have deep-rooted, never-dying aversion for the whole mean race of men. That which I have to live for is this quarter sectionof Alberta land. It'smine. I love it better than anything else on earth.
I broke my own land. I've put in my own crop. I hayed and chored, fenced and drudged, both in house and upon the land. I made most of my own furniture and I practically rebuilt the inside of this old shack.
"Necessity is the mother of invention" goes the proverb, but I loathe proverbs. One can find an opposing one for even the best of them. Some people pin proverbs and poems and texts upon their souls as on their walls. I suppose they get the sort of comfort and help from it that a cripple gets from a crutch. As far as that goes we are all cripples in life, and few there be who can walk without a crutch. I never saw a human being yet who did not limp, at least mentally....
There's one man in Alberta who comes to see me regularly once a month and no snub or plain telling that I prefer my own company to that of any others makes any impression upon him. He is painfully, hopelessly Scotch. However, one cannot quarrel with a man who has saved one's life. I am, or was, what they call in the west a "lunger." I was definitely diagnosed as "T.B." But if any one doubts that my lungs are soundnow they should hear me let out a war whoop that would compare well with old Chief Pie Belly's. Pie Belly is a Stony Indian and I have learned some things of that Indian. Not that I make a daily practice of war whooping, but there's sport in letting the full volume and force of one's lungs pour out across the utter silence of the prairie. If my voice carries to my neighbors—the nearest is five miles off—no doubt they take me for a coyote.
That Scotch doctor likes to pick a quarrel, to argue, to find fault and to bark like a dog. Alberta, according to him, is a "mon's land." There is no sentimental reference to "God's country" or "Sunny Alberta" from him. It is a hard land—a mon's land. I've no right here. I should not work outside the house. I should engage a couple to work the place on shares. I should dress as a "lass"; I should permit my hair to grow "as God planted it"; I should chasten my bitter tongue and heart; I should cultivate my neighbors, and I should not set myself up against my fellow men. Hm! Sounds very fine, my Scotch friend, but what do you know of what I have been through? How can you know that I am frozen inside?
My ranch—and I would rather write of my ranchthan dig into my personal thoughts and emotions—if there are any left in me—my ranch lies midway between the good grain lands on one side and the hill country, the cattle lands, on the other. I suppose I am part of Yankee Valley. I am sorry for that because I do not like Americans. They are noisy, insincere, and a boasting, bragging lot. As far as that goes, I like the English less. The Scotch are hard to tolerate, and as for the Irish, the devil made them in his own likeness. If it comes down to that, I don't know a single nationality that I can respect, and I have lived all over the world.
To farm is to gamble on the largest scale possible, for the earth may be said to be our board, the seed our dice and the elements, the soil, the parasites, the hail, the frost and the drought, these are the cards stacked against us. But, like all gamblers, we are reaching out for a prize that enthralls and lures us, and that "pot of gold at the end of our rainbow" is the harvest—the wonderful, glorious golden harvest of Alberta. Some day, it will come to me also.
In the spring, our land is excessively fragrant. The black, loamy soil fairly calls to one to lay the seed within its fertile bosom. Anything will grow inAlberta. It's a thrilling sight to see the grain prick up sturdy and strong. When first my own showed its green head above the earth, I suffered such exhilaration that I could have thrown myself upon the ground, and kissed the good earth. Those tiny points of green, there on the soil that I myself had plowed, disked, harrowed and seeded. I suffered the exquisite pang of the creator.
If only one might shut up memories in a box, close the lid tight and turn the key upon them. If but the past could be blotted out, as are our sins by death, then, methinks, we would find comfort and compensation in this poor life once again.
The last generation of the Lorings were a soft-handed, dependent race. I come of an older, primitive breed, I am a reversion to type, for I love to labor with my hands. Had I been a man, I might have been a ditch or a grave digger. I love the earth. When I die, I do not want to be cremated. I want to go back to the soil.
I talk here of compensations and of my ranch which I say is what I have to live for, yet life has not been sweet or easy for me in Alberta. It's been a battle with a grim antagonist—for poverty and sickness and cold—what can be grimmer than these? And then, much as I love to put in my crop, I have not yet had the joy of reaping it, for cutworm took my first, and this year early frost destroyed my grain when it had attained almost full growth. But never mind—that is all part of the game. The hardest part has been the enforced work at the Bar Q. No one enjoys laboring for those beneath them. I don't mean the laboring men. I have no sense of caste whatsoever, and they are as good as I am, I suppose. But Bull Langdon, the man whose pay I must take. He is a wild beast, one of the two legged cattle that should go to the shambles with his stock.
Yet I am not afraid of Bull Langdon. He never shouts at me. He only blusters, and his bloodshot eyes fall before mine. He may be the great boss and bully of the Bar Q. With his big bull whip in hand, his cattle may cower before him, and his men quail and slink away; his wife and Jake may tremble at the sound of his voice or step.Ihave his "number." I know that he is a coward, a great sneaking bully. He can lord it over small men and women and half-witted Indian boys. He never employs stronger or bigger men than himself. A giant in stature, and a Samsonin strength, nevertheless I assert he is a coward, a big unwhipped bully, whose own strength will some day prove his boomerang.
It's queer, as I have run along, I have omitted all mention of one in Alberta whom I should call a friend. Just a poor, illiterate young girl. I never can forget Nettie Day as I first saw her. Sickness, delirium even, may cast a glamour over things. It may be then our imagination pictures things as they are not; but nevertheless, Nettie's face, bending above my own, with its gentle look of tenderness and compassion, seemed to me as sweet as the "blessed damozel's" as she looked down from heaven to the earth beneath. She had wide, deep blue eyes, a child's eyes, full of an unplumbed innocence and questioning. Strange how one can come into our lives for such a little spell, disappear beyond our sight, and still remain in our hearts. I have seen little enough of Nettie, and the last time I saw her I hate to recall that I scolded her.
Next to my place is a quarter section of homestead land, owned by a young man named Stanley. One day I was fencing, when this young fellow, who had made attempts upon several occasions to speak to me, came over and watched me at my work. I ignored him, butlike my doctor friend, above mentioned, he is Scotch and thick. He didn't even know he was being ignored, and presently in a disgustingly friendly way he had the colossal nerve to attempt to instruct me in the art of making post holes. At that juncture I turned around and looked at him. Now I may seem as that Bar Q hand said, like a "tough old nut." No doubt I look like one, but I know the English trick of freezing ordinary people by a mere look. Itisa trick, like the Englishman's monocle and the strange part is only an English person can do it. You just stare, stonily, at the insignificant atom before you. I begin at the feet, and travel contemptuously up the whole despised body, till I reach the abashed and propitiating face. One need not say a single word. That look—if you know the technique of the act—is enough. This young Stanley dropped his hammer in a hurry and turned very red.
"I say, you're not mad at me, are you?" he stammered.
And just then Nettie, whom the doctor had dropped at my house that day, came from out the house, and something about that boy's face, just a flicker of the eye and the deepening red about his ears apprised meof the reason why he was so keen on being friends with me. I turned just in time to see on Nettie's guilty face the identical flicker I had noted on Stanley's. As cross as two sticks, I grabbed that girl by the arm and shoved her along the field to the house.
Once inside, I made her sit down, while I told her in detail all of the miseries and pitfalls and deceits and heartbreaks, the general unhappiness that befalls one foolish enough to fall in love. Love I told her was an antiquated emotion which had been burned out by the force of its own mad fire. I said something like that, for I was talking with feeling, upon a topic I understood, and as I talked, becoming more and more moved and excited as my subject warmed me, suddenly I observed that Nettie's eyes were fixed on space, as if on something very far away. She had her large, white hands unconsciously clasped upon her bosom; she was kneeling beside me, and something about her pose struck me at that moment as so divinely beautiful, so exquisitely madonna-like and lovely, that I choked upon my words and could go no further.
Then Nettie came out of her dream—I am sure she had heard not a word of my discourse—and said:
"Thank you, Angel." That girl calls me—Angel.God alone knows why. There is little of the angel in me.
I have not seen her since that day. Life has played strange tricks upon my little friend since then. Her father dead, her brothers and sisters scattered about in institutions and on farms, Nettie herself—at the Bar Q—of all places in the world, the last I would have wished to have seen her go!
Sometimes in the evening, when my work is done, I can recall to my mind Nettie as I last saw her with almost photographic clearness, and I experience a sense of nearness to her. The other night I had an impulse to start out then and there for the Bar Q. I felt that she needed me.
That young man on the adjoining quarter section sings a great deal as he works. I can hear him clear across the field—he has a real voice, a full, fine baritone, and in the still evenings, I confess there is something uplifting about that fresh young voice as it rings across the prairie. His home is nearing completion, he says, and that is why he sings. The thought of home and Nettie warms his heart till it bursts into song. Ah—well, who am I to judge what is best for these young people? So, sing on, young Cyril. I hopethat that clear brave voice of yours, as full of melody as a lark's, will never falter.
Last night, when I came in from the field, the half-breed Jake sidled along from behind my house. It gave me a start to see the poor idiot with his wild, witless face. He wanted to tell me something about the Bar Q. He jabbered and gibbered, and I could hardly make head or tail of what he was saying, save that Bull Langdon was eating something up.
Bright sunlight flooded Alberta. The miraculous harvest was over, and the buzz of the thousand threshing machines, day and night, sounded like music in the ears of the ranchers. The greatest bumper crop in the history of the continent had made Alberta famous throughout the grain world.
Settlers were pouring in from across the line. Land values soared to preposterous heights; and wherever there were municipalities of open range and unbroken land, the territory was being staked and fenced.
On the heels of the famous crop came first the fatal oil and then the fatal city real estate boom, which later was to act as a boomerang to the land, since it brought in the wildcat speculator, the get-rich-quick folk, the gold-brick seller and the train of clever swindlers that spring up from nowhere when a boom is on. The great province was to be exploited by these parasites. The boom swelled to fabulous proportionsalmost overnight. The streets of Calgary were thronged, train loads poured into the country; hysterical, half-crazed gamblers and "suckers" made or lost fortunes overnight; businesses of all kinds were started on "a shoe-string"; the wildest stories of oil flowing like water raced about the land. Oil indeed there was, as also coal in unlimited quantities, for the mineral wealth of the province had barely been scratched, but the boom was in full swing before the tests had been properly made, with the result that conservative people began to regard it askance, and almost as quickly as it had started, like an inflated bubble the oil boom burst. This brought undeserved desertion and wholesale ruin upon the country. Alberta had been made the "goat" of a flock of get-rich-folk from across the line, intent on making fortunes which then existed only upon paper.
The one solid and substantial asset that all the deflated booms could not affect, was the agricultural wealth of the province, real and potential. During this period, Bull Langdon's power and wealth swelled to enormous proportions. Before the year was out, he had become a multimillionaire. His cattle ranged over those "thousand hills"; his hundreds of granaries wereoverflowing with the grain of that bumper crop, grain that he held to sell as soon as the market was right; his grip was upon the stockyards and packing house industry and the stock market was under his control. No one questioned his right to be called the Cattle King of Canada.
Bloated with affluence and power, illiterate and uncouth as ever, his vanity was boundless. It flattered him to be known as the richest and most powerful man in the Province; to have his cattle, his stock, his immense ranches pointed out; to see his brand far-flung over the cattle country, and encroaching into the western States; his name stamped upon the beef that topped the market, not merely in the east but in the west, even into the Chicago stockyards—there to be exhibited, and wondered at—grass fed steers, competing with and surpassing the cornfeds of the U.S.A.
Above all his possessions he placed his magnificent purebred Hereford bulls, a race whose stamp was upon the whole cattle country, for scarcely a farmer or rancher in the country, but aspired to have his herd headed by a Bar Q bull. He had spared neither expense nor labor upon the breeding of these perfect animals, whose sires had come from the most famous herds inEngland and the States, and whose mothers were pure Canadian stock.
He coveted now the world championship for his latest product, a two-year-old Hereford bull, Prince Perfection Bar Q the Fourth. The Prince, as he was known throughout the purebred world, was of royal ancestry, and already, as a mere calf, his career at the cattle fairs in Canada had brought him under the eyes of the experts and cattle specialists. He was the son of that Princess Perfection Bar Q the Third, who had brought the lordly price when exhibited by Bull Langdon in Chicago of $40,000. His sire was of foreign birth, shipped to Canada by a member of the royal family, who, infatuated with the "cattle game," had acquired a ranch in Canada, and declared it to be the sport of kings.
Annually there was a showing of the Bar Q bulls, and from far and near ranchers and farmers trekked from all over Canada and the States to see the latest products of the famous herd. This year was exceptional, inasmuch, as the two-year-old Prince was to be examined and shown before a jury of experts, who would pronounce upon his chances of winning the coveted championship in the United States.
His curly hide brushed and smoothed, oiled and trimmed; his hoofs all but manicured; his face washed with soft oiled cloths; his eyes and nostrils wiped with boracic acid solution; fed on the choicest of green feed and chop, a golden ring in his nose, through which a golden chain was passed, the petted brute was led out to gladden the eyes of stock enthusiasts, experts, agriculturists, scientific cattle students, and others connected with the purebred game, who had come literally from the four corners of the earth, with a passion similar to that of the scientist or the collector, discovering some coveted rare specimen. They crowded about this perfect product of the Hereford race, and looked the massive brute over with the eyes of connoisseurs.
In that crowd of men about the roped-in space, around which Cyril Stanley led the bull by the chain, university men, men of title, an English Prince and an ex-president of the U.S.A., millionaire cattlemen and sportsmen, the overall cattlemen, ranchers, farmers, stock enthusiasts, stockyard and packing-house men, to say nothing of the humble homesteaders and derelicts, the numerous "remittancemen" from the old country, and speculators from cattle centers in Canada andthe States. A mixed "bunch," socially as wide apart as the poles, but in that cattle shed as close as brothers. They rubbed elbows, swapped expensive cigars for grimy chews, held their sides at each other's jokes, and joshed and roared across to each other. They were kindred spirits, and cattle was the bond between them.
Glowering and grinning at each other, as at a prize fight, applauding, groaning out oaths of enthusiasm, strange explosive utterances, they were a motley company. Professor Morton Calhoun made a circle of his hands, and squinted through it with one screwed-up eye, the attitude of an artist before a masterpiece, and after a long scrutiny, shook his head and groaned with joy.
Through this group of men moved Bull Langdon, in high good humor, dominant and arrogant, intimate with everyone, yet close to no one. When the big shed was full, and the circle about the ropes entirely surrounded his exhibit, Bull Langdon nonchalantly stepped into the ring, where the Prince followed Cyril Stanley tamely about. Cyril had a curiously hypnotic influence over the animal, and could even make him submit to having his head caressed and his nose patted.
On either horn two bright ribbons had been coyly twisted and tied, and these gave the animal a peculiarly festive look. As Bull Langdon stepped into the ring, a murmur of admiring and respectful applause broke forth. He approached the Prince from the left side, and reaching out a careless hand pulled the ribbon from one of the horns.
"We ain't raisin' no dolls!" said the cowman. "This is aBull!" and he reached for the other horn.
"Careful, boss!" warned Cyril. "He's not used to all this excitement, and I got my hands full keeping him calm."
"Who's talking?" growled the cattleman, spitting with amusement. "Are you trying to teach Bull Langdon the cattle game, you young whelp? I knowed it before the day you was born."
The young bull's head had suddenly uplifted. He sniffed the air, his neck bristling. Slowly, growing in depth and power, there burst from his throat a mighty roar that shook the tent, and drove the color from the faces about that ring, as with an almost concerted movement there was a backing from the lines and an exodus from the tent. Bull Langdon, as swiftly as a cat, had backed to the lines and was over them.Cyril was alone in the inclosure with the roaring bull. Half talking, half singing, not for a moment did his hand relax its grip upon the chain. Slowly the animal's head turned in his direction and again dropped submissively. There was a breath of relief about the lines, and Cyril led the bull back to his stall, fastening him securely to his post by the ring in his nose.
Bull Langdon was swearing foully, but his fury against Cyril and the Prince subsided at the approach of Professor Calhoun, the greatest authority on pure bred cattle in the world.
"Sir," said the little man, glaring at Bull Langdon through double-lensed glasses, scrutinizing the cattleman with the scientific air with which he examined cattle, "I will not hesitate to predict that your animal's progress throughout the United States—I will go farther and say, throughout the world—will be one of unbroken triumph. It has been my pleasure to look upon the most perfect Hereford specimen in the world. I congratulate you, sir."
Bull Langdon grunted, rose on the balls of his feet, chewed on the plug in his cheek, spat, and, his chest swelling, roared across at one of the Bar Q "hands."
"Take the gentleman—take all of the gentlemen—"he added, with a sweeping gesture of his arm toward the crowd, "to the booze tent. The treat's on Bull Langdon. Fill up, gentlemen, on the Bar Q."
Meanwhile, satiated with gloating over his great treasure, he bethought of another possession and upon which at this stage he set if possible an even greater value. True, he reckoned Nettie as "scrub" stock, while the Prince was of lordly lineage. On the auction block, the prince might bring a price that was worth a king's ransom; yet as he thought of the big, white-skinned, blue-eyed girl, the cowman knew that he would not give her up for all the champions in the cattle world. He owned the Prince; but though he had held the girl in his arms, he knew in his heart of hearts that she had never been his. That was what fretted and tormented him—the thought that his brand upon Nettie could never be permanent.
It was a boast of the cowman that what he wanted he took, and what he took, he held. He had wanted Nettie Day. He had taken her by mad force, as a barbarian might have fallen upon a Christian slave, yet he knew, with a sense of smoldering hatred and fury that a single hair upon the head of the young Bar Q hand was more to her than the Bull and all hispossessions. He was torn with a desire to return to Bar Q, and again take forcible possession of the girl; but the prize herd was now almost ready for the tour. It would be disastrous, ruinous to his reputation and career, if, at this psychological moment, anything should interfere with the departure of the herd, and there was no man in the outfit who could be trusted to take the place of Bull Langdon himself. Well, it would be the matter of a month or two only, and he would be back.
He found himself at the Prince's stall, glowering down upon the back of the kneeling Cyril, who was brushing down his charge's legs with an oiled brush. Presently Cyril looked up, and seeing his employer, he arose. The Bull cleared his throat noisily.
"Well, how about it, bo? You goin' along with Prince to the States?"
Cyril waited in his slow way, before replying, and as he hesitated, the Bull threw in savagely:
"Bonus of $500 to the 'hand' that takes special charge of the Prince and another $10 raise to his wages."
$500! It was a mighty sum of money, and the young man felt his heart thump at the thought of what it would buy for Nettie.
"When would you want me to leave?"
"Two weeks."
"When'd we be back?"
"Two months. I'll go along as far as St. Louis; leave for a spell, and join you at Chicago, comin' back with the outfit."
"I'd want a week off."
"What for?"
"I got a bit of fencing to finish on my homestead, and I got to ride over to Bar Q."
"What you want at Bar Q?"
Cyril's straight glance met his.
"My girl's there."
"Who'd you mean?"
"Nettie Day. We're planning to get married this winter."
The savage in Bull Langdon was barely held in check. He could scarcely control the impulse to throttle the life out of this cool-eyed youth, who dared to claim for his own what was the Bull's.
"You're countin' your chickens before they're hatched, ain't you?" he snarled. "Mebbe the gell's stuck on someone else."
"Not on your life she's not," said Cyril with calm conviction. "She and me are promised."
"Beat it, then," roared the Bull, "and the sooner you're back, the sooner we'll start. I'll hold the job for you for two weeks—not a day longer."
"You can count on me," said Cyril. "I'll be on the job."