Cyril reached the purebred camp the following
morning. He had ridden without stopping the
whole of the previous night. His mind was a burning
chaos; and he suffered all the torments of
jealousy and uncertainty. Even while he told himself
that he now hated Nettie, his heart went back to her--in
aching tenderness about her. He pictured her as
he had known her--her hair shining in the sun, and
that look which love alone brings to the human eyes,
lighting up her face and making it divinely beautiful
to her lover. He recalled her at the little shack, where
she had helped him fashion some of the rude pieces of
furniture; riding across the prairie, their horses' necks
touching as they pressed as close to each other as the
horses would permit; the nightly meetings in the berry
bushes; her hand nestling in his own. He remembered
her in his arms, her lips upon his!
In the darkness of the night, the boy rode sobbing.
In the gray of the morning, red of eyes, his hat well
over his face, he pulled into the Bull camp, and with
as steady a gait and voice as he could command he
faced Langdon.
"You back already?"
"Yes."
"Ready to go on?"
"Yes."
"Good. We'll get away a few days ahead. Hold
on there!"
Cyril had moved to go. He stood now at the door
of the cattle shed.
"Where've you been?"
There was no answer, and the Bull persisted.
"You been to Bar Q?"
"Yes."
"Well?"
There was silence again, and the Bull cut in with
seeming indifference.
"How's your gell? When you gettin' married?"
A deep pause, and Cyril answered slowly.
"It's off. I ain't marryin'."
"Turned you down, did she? Huh! Well, what do
you care? There's plenty good fish in the sea. There
ain't nothing to bellyache about. When you get over
to the States, you'll get all this female guff out of your
bones. Women ain't no good, anyways. They ain't
worth fretting about. They're a bad lot. Gimme
cattle in preference."
He extended the plug of tobacco, which the boy ignored.
His reddened eyes looked levelly into the
Bull's, and he said sturdily:
"It's a lie what you said about women. They ain't
bad!"