The long, golden fall of Alberta was especially
beautiful that year, and although well into November,
the weather was as warm and sunny as the
month of May. Winter came late to Alberta, sometimes
withholding its frosty hand till considerably
after Christmas; but it stayed late, extending even into
the spring months. There was a popular saying that
there was no spring in Alberta; one stepped directly
out of winter into summer. But the Alberta fall was
incomparably beautiful. The days were laden with
sunlight, and the night skies, with their myriad stars,
set in a firmament more beautiful than anywhere else
on earth, were remarkable for their lunar rainbows,
and the white blaze of the Northern lights.
Yet the long, sunlit days, and the cool, starry nights
brought no balm to the distracted Nettie. She felt
undone--body and soul.
As she trailed listlessly across the barnyard, she no
longer chirruped happily to the wee chicks or reproved
the contentious mother hens. All joy in work and in
contact with the live things on the ranch was gone for
her. She lived on like a machine, automatically wound
up. There were certain daily duties to be done; she
went about them dully and mechanically.
One November evening as she came, basket in hand,
out of the cowbarn, where she had been looking for
eggs in the stalls where the hens loved to lay, Jake
raced through the yard on his broncho, shouting and
screaming with excitement.
"Him! Him!" wildly yelled Jake, pointing toward
where along the Banff highway a solitary horseman
could be seen. At the word "Him" Nettie's first
thought was of the Bull, and she stiffened and paled;
but as she looked down the slope, to where the rider
was passing through the main gate to the road, she
turned even whiter, and longing and fear together shook
her so violently that she could hardly keep from swooning
at the sight of the well-remembered wide hat, the
bright flowing scarf, loosely tied beneath the boyish
chin, the orange-colored chapps, and the peppery young
broncho bearing his rider now so swiftly up that slope.
She did not recover from her emotion in time to take
flight, as her terrified impulse urged her, for Jake had
already opened the gate of the corral, and Cyril passed
through. He had seen the girl at the barn door, and
leaping from his horse, was at her side in an instant.
The basket of eggs in her hand crashed to the ground.
She lifted up both her hands, and her eyes looked wildly
about her like a trapped thing, seeking some way of
escape, as steadily, with face aglow, he closed in upon
her. With a muffled cry, she beat him back from her,
crying loudly:
"No-o! No! No!"
Like one possessed, she pushed him from her with
mad strength and rushed through the corral out into
the yard. Dumfounded, Cyril looked after her, and
then calling her by name he pursued her.
"Nettie! Nettie! I say--Nettie!"
She fled as if demented, running in a circle around
the house; then darted in at the back kitchen door.
She tried to hold the door closed, but his impetuous
hand forced it open. Her breath coming in spasmodic
gasps, leaning against the wall of the back kitchen
for support, Nettie faced him.
She cried out loudly:
"Go away! Go away!"
"Go away? What do you mean? What for?
Nettie, for God's sake, what's the matter, little girl?"
She repeated the words wildly, with all her force.
"Go away! Go! Don't come near me. Don't
touch me. Don't even look at me."
"Why not? What's the matter? You're playin' a
game, and it ain't fair to go so far. What's the
matter, girl? Nettie--you--you ain't gone back on
me, are you?"
She could not meet those imploring young eyes, and
turned bodily about, so that now her face was to the
wall, and her back to him. Her voice sounded muffled,
strangled:
"Leave me be. I mustn't see you."
"Why not? Since when? What've I done? I got
a right to know. What's happened?"
His voice quavered though he sought manfully to
control it. There was a long, tense silence, and then
Nettie Day said in a low, dead voice:
"I ain't the same."
"You mean you've changed?" he demanded, and she
answered in that same lost voice:
"Yes--all changed. I ain't the same."
He took this in slowly, his hands clenching, the hot
tears scalding his lids. Then burst out with boyish
anguish and passion:
"Don't say that, Nettie. I can't believe it. It ain't
true. You and me--we're promised. I been thinking
of nothing else. I built the little house for you. It's
all ready now, dear, and I come on up to Bar Q now
to tell you I got a chance to go to the States with the
purebred stuff, and there's a bonus of $500 in it for
me, and a $10 raise to my wages. Nettie, girl, I took
him up on that proposition, because I wanted to do
more for you."
"Why did you go away?" said Nettie harshly.
"I went on your account. You ain't mad about
that, are you, girl? Why, I wanted to make things
softer for you, and I got a chance now to make good
money--$500, Nettie, and I says to myself: 'Here's
where Nettie and me'll go off on our honeymoon to the
U.S.,' and I come up here now thinking, 'Here's where
we'll put one over on the Bull, and we'll slip down to
Calgary and get married, and then we get aboard the
train. I'll spring my wife on the outfit and----'"
He choked and gulped, and Nettie moaned aloud,
crying:
"I tell you I ain't the same. I'm changed. You
oughtn't to've gone away."
Dark suspicions began to mount and with their
growth jealous fury caused him to swing her roughly
about, so that again she faced him. But she evaded his
glance, turning her head from side to side, so that she
need not meet his accusing hot young eyes.
"You got another fellow, have you? Have you?
You can answer that, anyway."
But there was no answer from the girl, and as his
grip relaxed on her arms, her head dropped dumbly
down. A cruel laugh broke from the boy's lips.
"I see! Someone's cut me out, heh? I'm dead on
to you now. I got your number, I have. If you're
that sort--if you couldn't stand a few months' separation
without goin' back on a fellow, I'm well rid of
you. I wish you luck with your new fellow. I hope
he ain't the fool like I been."
Still there was no answer from the girl, standing there
with her head down, and her arms hanging like a dead
person's by her sides.
Presently there was a clatter of hoofs in the corral,
and Cyril went out at a furious trot. As the flying
horseman disappeared over the hills, Nettie slowly
sank to her knees, and her arms stretched out, she
cried aloud:
"I wisht I was dead! I wisht I was dead!"