The Englishwoman stood in the doorway of her
shack, rifle in hand, and gazed calmly at the
blustering cowman, who had dismounted, and, fists on
hips, was standing before her. For the first time
in his life Bull Langdon found himself face to face with
a woman who was not afraid of him. Her cold, unwavering
glance traveled over him, from his flat head down
to his great, coarse feet, and back with cool disparagement
straight into his flinching eyes.
"You seen anything of that gell, Nettie Day?"
Angella disdained to answer. She was looking over
his head, and presently she said:
"Will you kindly remove yourself from my place? I
don't want you here."
"You don't, heh? Well, I'm here to get something
of my own, do you get me?"
"Oh, yes, I get you all right; but you'll take nothing
off my place, you may be sure of that."
He stood his ground with bravado, and blurted out
his errand; he had come for Nettie, and intended to
have her and his kid. She belonged to him; was his
"gell," and he had bought her along with her "dad's
old truck." He'd have been over sooner, but his cattle
had tied him down since his return from the States,
and he "wan't the kind o' man to neglect his cattle
for a woman."
As he spoke, Angella's level gaze rested coolly upon
him, and met his blustering outburst with a half-smile
of detached and amused contempt. But when he made
a movement as if to enter the house, Angella Loring
slowly brought her rifle to her shoulder, and aimed
straight at him. With the practiced eye of a dead shot,
she squinted down the length of the barrel, and the
Bull sprang back, when he saw her finger crooked upon
the trigger.
"What the h---- you tryin' to do?"
She answered without lowering the gun or moving
her finger.
"You clear off my place! If you attempt to enter
my house I'll shoot you down with less compunction
than I would a dog."
He slouched a few paces farther back, and an evil
laugh broke from his lips. Once he had reached his
horse's side, his bravado returned.
"Guess there ain't goin' to be no trouble gettin'
what's my own. The law's on my side. I've got as
much right to that kid, that's my own stuff, as the
gell has."
"Oh, have you?" said Angella coolly. "Unfortunately
for you, the child is no longer even Nettie's. It's
mine. She gave me her child for adoption."
"She hadn't no right to do that," said the Bull in
a sudden access of rage. "It ain't hers to give away."
"Oh, isn't it, though?"
"No, it ain't, and I'll show you a thing o' two. There
won't be no funny business with guns neither when a
couple of mounties come up here after what's mine."
"I wouldn't talk about the law if I were you. You
see, when you committed that crime against Nettie, she
happened to be a minor. I don't know just how many
years in the penitentiary that may mean for you.
Her lawyers will know."
At the word "penitentiary," his face had turned gray.
Nettie's youth had never occurred to him before, nor
what it might mean for him.
"Besides," went on the Englishwoman, "apart from
the legal aspects of the case, I wonder that you take
a chance in a country like this. Consider what is likely
to happen to you, if the truth about Nettie becomes
known in this ranching country. We have an unwritten
law of our own in such cases, you know, and everybody
has been blaming an innocent boy. What will they say--what
will they do, when they know that the most
detested and hated man in the country attacked a
young, defenseless girl when she was alone in his house?
I wouldn't care to be in your shoes when that fact leaks
out, as you may be sure it will. I'll take care of that!
You can trust me to denounce you without reserve!"
The Bull shouted, purple with rage:
"There ain't no man livin' I'm afraid of, and there
ain't no man in the country strong enough to lay a
finger on me, see. I could beat every son of a gun in
Alberta to a pulp."
"I don't doubt that. You look as if you might have
the strength of a gorilla; but then where a hand will
not serve a rope will, and you know it will be short work
for your own men to hang you to a tree when young
Cyril Stanley ropes you. Now I've talked to you
enough. You get off my place, or I'll put a shot in
that ugly fist of yours that'll lame you for the rest of
your days."
He had remounted and she laughed at his haste; yet
as he rode off, the venomous expression on his face
turned her heart cold with a new fear, and her ears
rang ominously with his parting words.
"So long, old hen, you'll sing another tune when we
meet again."