There was hail in the south and further west;
it zigzagged across the country, beating down
the tall grain; the stones lay as big as eggs upon
the ground, breaking windows and lashing in its vindictive
fury whatever stood in its path. The grain shuddered
beneath the onslaught and bent to the ground.
An angry black cloud overspread the sky like a gigantic
hand from whose outstretched fingers the hail was
falling. Not a stalk was left standing in the fields over
which the storm passed, but its course was curiously
eccentric. It ignored whole municipalities, and no one
could tell where next it would choose to vent its wicked
rage. Anxiously the girls had watched the path of the
mad cloud, taking count of the destructive force that
was wreaking such havoc upon the grain lands. Nettie
prayed--prayed to the God of whom she knew so pitifully
little, but to whom Mrs. Langdon had been so near,
and begged that their fields, Angela's and Cyril's, might
be spared.
The rural telephone wires were busy all that day and
evening, with the calls of the excited farmers.
"Were you struck?"
"Yes, wiped out."
"Insured?"
"Not a red cent."
"Gosh, I'm sorry. There's not a spear left in my
fields neither, but I got ten dollars on the acre."
"Think they'll allow you one hundred per cent. loss?"
"Sure they will."
"Hm! Betcha you'll thresh just the same."
Then the bang of a hanging up receiver; but the
ceaseless buzzing went on, with all the other parties
on the main wire listening in, gloating or commiserating
over each others' misfortunes.
"How about Smither's?"
"Say, his fields aren't touched."
"You don't say. Isn't it the devil how them hail
storms skip and miss."
"Munsun's got wiped off the map. So did Homan."
"Pederson's ain't touched even."
"Trust them Swedes to have the luck every time."
"Did you hear about Bar Q?"
"No, what?"
"Heard they got it hardest of all. My land! There
isn't a field the hail didn't get. The whole three thousand
acres on the grain ranch. I see where his nibs
won't do much threshing this year."
"He should worry. You can bet your bottom dollar
he's got double insurance on his crop, and, say, anyway,
he'll have a sight of green feed for his cattle. They
say he's short of hay in the hill country this year.
I'll bet he cuts the hailed stuff for feed."
"I wouldn't wonder!"
And so on.
As it happened, Nettie and Angella's crops were
among the few that had escaped untouched. When
the storm had passed and the sun blazed out again over
the battered fields there, strong and sturdy, shining
in the clear light, the grain they had sown seemed to
smile at them and call aloud to be reaped without
further delay.
It was now mid-August, and the grain was ripe.
Angella rode the binder, a picturesque implement with
canvas wings, which when in operation resembles a sort
of flying machine. Nettie followed on foot, stooking.
This was a man's job, for the sheaves of grain were
heavy, and it was no easy matter to bend and grasp the
thick bundles and stook them in stacks; but Nettie was
strong and willing. She even tried to keep pace with
the binder, by running to the stacks, until Angella
brought up her horses sharply and refused to go on
with the work, unless Nettie took her time about the
stooking.
The harvest occupied three long weeks, but the day
came at last when the work was all completed. There
was no longer any danger of frost, hail or drought.
Nothing remained to be done but the threshing. Under
the mellow evening light that suffuses the Alberta
country at the harvest season, the girls, having gleaned
bravely and well, rode in from their last day of harvesting.
Sound carries far in the prairie country, and they
could hear distinctly the buzz of the threshing machine
eight miles away, droning like a comfortable bee, working
steadily through the night. In a few days, the
threshers would "pull in" to Angella's ranch and the
harvested grain would be poured into the temporary
granaries that they had constructed from a portion
of the barn.
As they stood together in the twilight, looking across
at the harvest field, they felt, though they might not
have been able to express their thoughts in words, that
they had made of that land of theirs a picture no
human brush could ever copy. And as this thought
came simultaneously to their minds, their eyes met, and
they smiled at each other like sisters. As they turned
reluctantly from the contemplation of their masterpiece,
Nettie's last glance toward the hills saw the
figure of a rider silhouetted against the skyline. On
his first appearance at the top of the grade, she did
not recognize him, but as he approached, an uncontrollable
agitation shook her from head to foot.
"Angel! Look--look--look--look--it's--the Bull!
Oh--h----"
"You have nothing to fear, Nettie. Nettie!"
"Oh, Angel, he's come for me! I knowed he would!
I've been lookin' for him, dreadin' it and now he's
here. Oh, what am I to do? Where can I hide?"
As on the night when the Bull had trapped her in
her room and she had listened paralyzed with fear to
the breaking down of her door, her eyes darted wildly
about for a means of escape. This time, instead of the
narrow room, the whole of the far-flung prairie lay
before her with the great grain stocks which she herself
had piled together. She broke from Angella's grasp,
and fled across the field, and darting from one stack to
another, crouched down in despair behind the farthest
one.
Angella made no movement to stop the fleeing girl.
Her eyes narrowed slightly as she gazed keenly at the
man to discover whether it was indeed Bull Langdon;
then she turned and quietly went into her house. She
put the child in its basket into the inner room, and took
down her rifle; the rifle her neighbors in the early days
had jeered at but learned to respect. Angella did not
load it in the house, but slowly and calmly as Bull
Langdon rode up she fitted the bullets in place.