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 midnight
and 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 the
big 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, full
of 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 the
house. 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 with
you!" 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 cold
roast 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.