In a country like Alberta, especially in the ranching
sections, it is not difficult for a person to
disappear, if he is so minded.
Nettie had lived several months with Angella Loring
before her presence there was discovered. On one side of
Angella's quarter was a municipality of open range,
and on the other, Cyril Stanley's quarter section.
Beyond Cyril's ranch was bush stretching for several
miles to the Elbow River that intersected, south and
north, the land towards the foothills fifty miles out
of which was the Bar Q hill ranch. Beyond this dense
timber land began, and in its very heart stood the Bow
Claire Lumber Camp on the banks of the Ghost and
Bow Rivers. Past the timber land the foothills still
continued, growing higher and higher till they merged
into the chain of Rocky Mountains.
Gossip about Nettie Day had been confined to the
foothill ranching country. Her story had run from
ranch to ranch, and the general comment was expressed
in the customary country phrases of: "I never
would have believed it" or "I told you so." But Nettie
disappeared from the foothills, and curiosity, in a
ranching country as has been said above, is short-lived.
Besides, the death of Mrs. Langdon provided the ranchers
with fresh excitement, and questions as to Nettie's
whereabouts were rarely heard.
At this time new cares had begun to take possession
of the country people of Alberta. Even as early as
the spring, strange symptoms of unrest might have
been observed, and here and there fear seemed to look
out of the ranchers' eyes. Strange stories were percolating
into the ranches of sickness in the cities, a certain
sickness which the authorities purposely misnamed
in order that the danger of panic might be averted.
The ranch people stuck closely to their homes that
spring and summer and were not cordial to strangers
or of the usually welcome regular visitors from the
city--the insurance and real estate men, the drug
seller and the sly affable stranger who sold his Pain
Killer to the hands with a wink. All these "paper-collar
dudes" as the farmers called them, and the motor hoboes
and camp-tramps, who stopped at the ranches to ask
for anything from a measure of milk to a night's lodging,
experienced that summer a cold reception, for the
ranch people were shrewd enough to appreciate the
fact that the plague might be carried to them through
just such mediums as these. So they stuck close to
home, and although the papers were filled with scare-head
accounts of the fearful scourge in the east,
Alberta believed or hoped it would prove immune.
In Yankee Valley, no one knew that the girl from the
D. D. D. had returned, or that, with her child, she
had found a refuge in the home of the Englishwoman
who preferred to live like a hermit rather than accept
the friendship of her neighbors. Angella's land lay
well back from the main road and trails and there
Nettie had found a true sanctuary. One day, Batt
Leeson, who had taken Cyril's place at the Bull camp,
was riding by Cyril's quarter, en route to the foothills
and paused at the sight of a girl in a man's blue overalls,
driving a six-horse plow team over new breaking.
Nettie, at a pause in the harvesting, while they were
waiting for a field of oats to ripen, was filling in the
time by breaking new land on Cyril's quarter.
Batt, gazing at her with his mouth open and his eyes
blinking incredulously, could not believe it possible.
To make doubly sure, he rode close to the fence line,
and from behind the shelter of a tree, he waited for the
plow to make its next round of the field. On and on it
came, its dull rumble and clatter of iron the louder for
the stillness of the prairie. Over a piece of rising
ground came Nettie Day upon the implement. Her
head was bare, and her hair shone red-gold in the sunshine,
seeming to radiate light like a halo. It had been
cropped close as a boy's, and the gentle wind lifted
and blew it back from her flushed face as she drove.
"Well, I'll be switched!" said the ranch hand.
He was, in fact, overjoyed at his discovery and would
go back to the foothills with a rich morsel of news. He
imagined himself saying, "What d'you think? That
there girl that got into trouble at Bar Q is workin' on
the land of the fellow that--" Once Cyril Stanley had
punched his face for a much slighter offense than mentioning
his (Cyril's) name in connection with a girl,
and Batt hit his tongue upon the name of the man he
suspected as the cause of Nettie Day's downfall.
Chuckling with satisfaction, he followed the girl
with his gloating eyes, but she was looking straight
ahead and never turned her head to where the rider
watched her from the trail.
Things had been going from bad to worse at Bar Q.
More than the usual number of calves had died from
blackleg, and a number of first-class heifers had perished
in the woods where the larkspur poison weed grew wild.
A Government veterinary surgeon, after a hurried survey
of the animals on the home range, had put a blanket
quarantine on all the cattle, which prevented their
removal for months--in fact, until the "vet" gave them
a clean bill of health.
The cowman's stock and ranch had been badly neglected
in his absence. His cattle had been allowed to
go at large; the fences were out of repair and the
customary careful segregation of each different grade
was a thing of the past. He found the whole ranch at
sixes and sevens, and raged at the foremen for their
neglect, swearing that not "a stitch of work" had been
done all the time he had been away. He celebrated his
return by "firing" all hands at the foothill ranch, and
the new outfit who took their places proved worse than
the old. Their term at the ranch was soon over, and
the constant changing of hands that now began had an
exceedingly bad effect upon the place. Good help was
very scarce at that time, and wages had been as high
as one hundred dollars a month with board, so Bull
Langdon had his hands full at Bar Q.
He went about in a state of chronic evil humor in
these days, and found nothing about the place to suit
him. Without his wife, the big ranch house got upon
his nerves, for with the genius of the born home-maker
she had created an atmosphere of comfort and peace
that had made it impressive even on her husband's
insensitive mind. She had catered to his appetite and
his whims, and he had become used to having a woman's
tender care about him; indeed, he had grown to depend
upon the very services he had so roughly rewarded in
the past. He could neither accustom himself to the
empty house not endure the meals at the cook car.
In these days he slept on the ground floor of the
house, in the dining room. During his wife's lifetime
the room had shone with orderliness and cleanliness;
now boots, rough coats and trousers, shirts, and the
cattlemen's riding accessories were strewn all over it,
while the unmade bed, the unwashed pots and pans, the
traces of muddy boots upon the floor, and the dust of
weeks had turned it into a place of indescribable dirt and
confusion.
The Bull had refused to sleep upstairs since his wife's
death; her bedroom door remained closed. Nettie's,
too, still hung on its broken hinges, and sometimes on
a windy night the knocking of that broken door,
screeching and swinging upon its single hinge, was more
than the overwrought cattleman could stand, and he
would tramp out to the bunkhouse, and sleep there
instead. He felt the need of his home more and more,
however, and like a spoiled child whose favorite toy had
been taken from him, he fumed and stormed at the
ill-luck that had robbed him.
One day he returned to the house after a hard day's
riding, and the sight of its grime and disorder set a
spark to his already smoldering rage. His thoughts
turned, as always at such moments, to the girl whose
place he honestly believed was there in his house where
he had intended to install her. She had been gone long
enough. He had put up with enough of her damned
nonsense now, and it was time to round her up. He
regarded Nettie as a stray head of stock, that had
slipped from under the lariat noose, and was wandering
in strange pastures. True, she was a prized head, but
that only strengthened the Bull's determination to capture
her. He considered her his personal stuff; something
he had branded, and he was not the man to part
with anything that belonged to him, as doggedly and
repeatedly he assured himself she did, having been
bought with the rest of her dad's old truck.
Batt Leeson riding in from Barstairs brought him
the first news of the girl that he had had since the
night she had fled in terror from his house.
"Say, boss, who d'you suppose I seen when I rode
by Yankee Valley?"
"How the h---- should I know?"
"Well, I seen that Day girl that used to work up
here."
Bull Langdon, busy making of a bull-whip, twisting
long strips of cowhide about a lump of lead, stopped
short in his work, and looked up sharply at the slowly
chewing, slowly talking ranch hand.
"What's that you say?"
"I was sayin' that I seen her--Nettie Day--over to
Yankee Valley, and where d'you suppose she's living?
Say, she must be tied up now to that Stanley fellow,
because I seen her on his land and----"
"That's a damned lie!" shouted the cattleman, and
dashed the loaded cowhide to the floor with a foul oath.
Batt, his knees shaking with terror, retreated before
the advance of the enraged cowman.
"It's true as God what I'm telling you. I seen her
with my own eyes. She was breakin' land on Stanley's
quarter."
Bull Langdon's eyes were bloodshot and his face
twitched hideously.
"That young scrub's at Bow Claire. His homestead's
burned to the ground. You can't come to me with no
such tale as that."
"B--b-b-b--but I tell you she's workin' his land. I
seen her. I stopped right close and looked her over to
make sure. I ain't makin' no mistake. Thought at first
I might be, cause I figure that a girl in her condition
wouldn't be----"
"What-cha mean by her condition?"
"Sa-ay boss." Batt scratched his head, uncertain
whether to proceed; itching to tell the tale of the girl's
fall, but fearing the menacing spark in the cattleman's
eyes. "I thought you knew."
"Knew what?"
"'Bout her condition."
Batt essayed a sly, ingratiating wink, but it had no
placating effect upon the man before him.
"I don't know what the devil you're talking about."
"Gosh, boss, everyone knows 'bout Nettie Day. She's
agoin' to have a baby--mebbe she's got it now. I expect
she has."
"What-t!"
The Bull's eyes bulged; a tidal wave of unholy joy
threatened to overwhelm him.
A baby! His! His! His own! His and that gell's!
He threw back his head and burst into a storm of
laughter. His wild mirth shook the beams and rafters
of the old room, and seemed to reverberate all through
the great house.
"Well, by G----!" said the cowman and reached for
his riding boots. He pulled them savagely on, still
chuckling and chortling, and pausing ever and anon to
smack his hip.
"Goin' riding, boss?"
"You betcher life I am."
"Where you goin'?"
"I'm going to a round up," said Bull Langdon,
clicking his lips.
"After some loose stock?"
"A purebred heifer with a calf at heel," said Bull
Langdon. "They've got my brand upon them."