The days were getting longer. The fall round-up was under way and the Bull rode the range with his men. For a week long files of cattle had been pouring down from the hills to meet in the lower pastures of the ranch and automatically form into symmetrical rank that moved lowing before the drivers to the corrals and pens where they were sorted over and separated.

It was a period of torture for the cattle for the Bar Q branded, dehorned and weaned in the early fall. Day and night the incessant crying of over two thousand calves and outraged mothers, penned in separate fields or corrals, rent the air.

The round-up was an early and swift one that year for Bull Langdon was due to leave in early November for the States with his purebred bulls. He seemed possessed of inexhaustible energy and vitality and no amount of riding appeared to tire him. It was no uncommon thing for him after a night and day of riding to bring up finally at the ranch house at midnight and sit down to the big meal prepared by the girl whom he would summon with a thump upon her door. Little conversation passed between them at these times, but once when the cattleman had volunteered the information that they were about through Nettie said, with apparent relief:

"Then there will be no more branding. I'm glad of that."

The cattleman leaned across the table, his elbows upon it and a knife and fork in either hand. His meaning glance pinned the girl fairly.

"One more head," he said. "I'll put my personal brand upon that maverick before I go."

She felt as if an icy hand were clutching at her heart.

The following day she was sent to Morley, an Indian trading post, where was the nearest post office for the Bar Q mail. It was eight miles from the ranch and Nettie went on horseback, returning in about two and a half hours, in time to get the supper.

There was no one about the place when she rode into the corrals. Dismounting, she unsaddled her horse, hung bridle and saddle in the barn, and let the horse out to pasture. Hurrying to the house she found the big kitchen deserted. Usually when the girl went off on long errands Mrs. Langdon prepared the supper, but Nettie supposed her mistress was taking her afternoon nap. So she busied herself with the preparation of the supper. She peeled the potatoes and set them on the range, quickly beat up a pan of buttermilk biscuits and put them in the oven. Her table set, she sliced the cold meat and put the kettle on for tea.

Having finished, and there being still no sign of Mrs. Langdon, she ran upstairs and tapped upon her door. There was no reply. Nettie opened the door and looked in. The room was empty and the wide-open closet door revealed the fact that it had been stripped.

A wave of fear swept over the girl; she ran panting downstairs and out into the barnyard. Not a "hand" was about, though far across the pastures she could see the fence riders riding toward the ranch, their day's work done. Jake, driving in the six milk cows, came over the crest of the hill and loped slowly down to the barnyard, stopping to water his horse. He did not see Nettie at first waiting for him at the cowshed and when he did began to jabber without dismounting. One by one the cows went into their stalls and stood, bags full, patiently waiting to be milked. Jake, full of his news, dismounted. He had a pronounced impediment in his speech and when excited became almost unintelligible.

"Mis' Langdon—her gone off—off—off——" He pointed vividly toward the mountains. "Rode on nortermobile to a station. Goin' far away on train—choo-choo—coo!"

Nettie stared at him blankly. She could barely understand the bare fact that her mistress was gone and in her anxiety she plied the boy with questions.

"Where had she gone? When? Who had gone with her? Why did she go? What had she taken? How long was she to be gone?"

As desperately she shook the half-breed's ragged sleeve in her impatience to make him understand her the honk of an automobile horn caused her to look toward the garage and there she saw the Bull backing in the car. She hurried across the barnyard, her fear of the man forgotten in her intense anxiety about her mistress.

In his characteristic pose at the wide door of the garage he awaited her approach.

"Is—is it true that Mrs. Langdon has gone away?"

"Yep. Just taken her to the station. Gone up to Banff."

"Banff! Will she be gone for long?"

She hardly realized that her lips were quivering and her eyes were so full of tears that she could not see the strange expression on the Bull's face as he looked down gloatingly upon her.

The soft golden sunset was all about them and the brooding hush of the closing day lent a beauty and stillness to the evening that was full of poetry, but the man, with his calculating, bulging eyes, saw nothing but her softly maturing loveliness, the rounded curve of her bosom, the white softness of her neck, the rose that came and went in her cheeks, the scarlet lips that aroused in his breast a tormenting passion such as he had never experienced for any woman before.

Nettie repeated her question, her voice catching in the sob that would come despite her best efforts. With the going of both Cyril and her mistress she felt deserted and forlorn.

"Will she be gone long I asked you?"

"Long enough to suit me," said the Bull slowly. "She's took a holiday. Guess she's entitled to one now we've got a gell like you to take her place up to the house. I'm thinking you'll fill the bill fine and suit me down to a double T. Is supper ready?"

She stared up at him through the haze before her eyes, piteously, her lips moving, almost as if entreating him. She tried to say:

"It'll be on the table in a few minutes," but the words came indistinctly through the tears which now began to fall heavily in spite of her effort to restrain them. Blindly she moved toward the house, holding her apron to her face. Absorbed in her grief, she was unconscious of the fact that the Bull pressed close to her side and that it was his big hand under her arm that guided her to the house. Inside the kitchen he held her for a space as she gasped and cried:

"I won't stay here alone."

"Yer don't have to, gell," said the Bull huskily. "I'm here."

"You!"

She wrenched her arm free.

"I'm not going to stay in this house alone with you!" she cried.

"Ain't you? Mebbe you'd prefer the bunkhouses then?"

The Bull was chuckling coarsely.

"I won't stay nowhere at Bar Q. I'm goin' to get out—tonight."

"As you say, gell. I told the wife not to set too much store by you, but no, she'd have her way. Said you could take her place and do the work fine, and she thought she should do as the doctor said and git away for a change."

Nettie paused, the thought of her mistress's confidence in her holding her in her headlong purpose to escape.

"So I could do the work alone. It's not that. It's just that—that I'm afraid to be here alone—with you," she blurted out.

"Far's that goes, I'm hikin' for Barstairs myself tonight. Goin' on up to the Bull camp. We're leavin' for the States shortly, and I got to go alone."

Something was burning on the stove and she rushed to lift off the potatoes. The Bull had seated himself at the table and was buttering a chunk of bread. Nettie hesitated a moment and then, as the man apparently oblivious of or indifferent to her presence continued to munch in abstracted silence, Nettie took her place at the table. She poured out the tea and passed his cup to him, helping herself to a piece of the cold roast pork. The potato dish was to the left of him and after a moment she timidly asked him to pass it to her. He shoved the dish across without looking up and continued to "pack down"—an expression of his own—the food.

The meal came to an end in this strange silence and afterwards she cleared the table and washed the dishes, acutely aware of every move the man made in the big room. He had taken down his sheepskin riding coat and pushed his legs into fur chapps. The spurs clanked as he snapped them onto his heels. He took down the quirt and huge hat hanging to a deer head's horns, clapped the hat upon his head, and tramped to the door. All his preparations indicated a long ride. At the door he threw back an order to Nettie.

"Anyone telephones, I'll reach Barstairs by six or seven in the mornin'. They can get me there. Have Jake at the house for chores. Let 'im sleep off the kitchen."

She nodded dumbly, conscious only of a vast sense of relief. He was gone.