Bright sunlight flooded Alberta. The miraculous harvest was over, and the buzz of the thousand threshing machines, day and night, sounded like music in the ears of the ranchers. The greatest bumper crop in the history of the continent had made Alberta famous throughout the grain world.

Settlers were pouring in from across the line. Land values soared to preposterous heights; and wherever there were municipalities of open range and unbroken land, the territory was being staked and fenced.

On the heels of the famous crop came first the fatal oil and then the fatal city real estate boom, which later was to act as a boomerang to the land, since it brought in the wildcat speculator, the get-rich-quick folk, the gold-brick seller and the train of clever swindlers that spring up from nowhere when a boom is on. The great province was to be exploited by these parasites. The boom swelled to fabulous proportions almost overnight. The streets of Calgary were thronged, train loads poured into the country; hysterical, half-crazed gamblers and "suckers" made or lost fortunes overnight; businesses of all kinds were started on "a shoe-string"; the wildest stories of oil flowing like water raced about the land. Oil indeed there was, as also coal in unlimited quantities, for the mineral wealth of the province had barely been scratched, but the boom was in full swing before the tests had been properly made, with the result that conservative people began to regard it askance, and almost as quickly as it had started, like an inflated bubble the oil boom burst. This brought undeserved desertion and wholesale ruin upon the country. Alberta had been made the "goat" of a flock of get-rich-folk from across the line, intent on making fortunes which then existed only upon paper.

The one solid and substantial asset that all the deflated booms could not affect, was the agricultural wealth of the province, real and potential. During this period, Bull Langdon's power and wealth swelled to enormous proportions. Before the year was out, he had become a multimillionaire. His cattle ranged over those "thousand hills"; his hundreds of granaries were overflowing with the grain of that bumper crop, grain that he held to sell as soon as the market was right; his grip was upon the stockyards and packing house industry and the stock market was under his control. No one questioned his right to be called the Cattle King of Canada.

Bloated with affluence and power, illiterate and uncouth as ever, his vanity was boundless. It flattered him to be known as the richest and most powerful man in the Province; to have his cattle, his stock, his immense ranches pointed out; to see his brand far-flung over the cattle country, and encroaching into the western States; his name stamped upon the beef that topped the market, not merely in the east but in the west, even into the Chicago stockyards—there to be exhibited, and wondered at—grass fed steers, competing with and surpassing the cornfeds of the U.S.A.

Above all his possessions he placed his magnificent purebred Hereford bulls, a race whose stamp was upon the whole cattle country, for scarcely a farmer or rancher in the country, but aspired to have his herd headed by a Bar Q bull. He had spared neither expense nor labor upon the breeding of these perfect animals, whose sires had come from the most famous herds in England and the States, and whose mothers were pure Canadian stock.

He coveted now the world championship for his latest product, a two-year-old Hereford bull, Prince Perfection Bar Q the Fourth. The Prince, as he was known throughout the purebred world, was of royal ancestry, and already, as a mere calf, his career at the cattle fairs in Canada had brought him under the eyes of the experts and cattle specialists. He was the son of that Princess Perfection Bar Q the Third, who had brought the lordly price when exhibited by Bull Langdon in Chicago of $40,000. His sire was of foreign birth, shipped to Canada by a member of the royal family, who, infatuated with the "cattle game," had acquired a ranch in Canada, and declared it to be the sport of kings.

Annually there was a showing of the Bar Q bulls, and from far and near ranchers and farmers trekked from all over Canada and the States to see the latest products of the famous herd. This year was exceptional, inasmuch, as the two-year-old Prince was to be examined and shown before a jury of experts, who would pronounce upon his chances of winning the coveted championship in the United States.

His curly hide brushed and smoothed, oiled and trimmed; his hoofs all but manicured; his face washed with soft oiled cloths; his eyes and nostrils wiped with boracic acid solution; fed on the choicest of green feed and chop, a golden ring in his nose, through which a golden chain was passed, the petted brute was led out to gladden the eyes of stock enthusiasts, experts, agriculturists, scientific cattle students, and others connected with the purebred game, who had come literally from the four corners of the earth, with a passion similar to that of the scientist or the collector, discovering some coveted rare specimen. They crowded about this perfect product of the Hereford race, and looked the massive brute over with the eyes of connoisseurs.

In that crowd of men about the roped-in space, around which Cyril Stanley led the bull by the chain, university men, men of title, an English Prince and an ex-president of the U.S.A., millionaire cattlemen and sportsmen, the overall cattlemen, ranchers, farmers, stock enthusiasts, stockyard and packing-house men, to say nothing of the humble homesteaders and derelicts, the numerous "remittancemen" from the old country, and speculators from cattle centers in Canada and the States. A mixed "bunch," socially as wide apart as the poles, but in that cattle shed as close as brothers. They rubbed elbows, swapped expensive cigars for grimy chews, held their sides at each other's jokes, and joshed and roared across to each other. They were kindred spirits, and cattle was the bond between them.

Glowering and grinning at each other, as at a prize fight, applauding, groaning out oaths of enthusiasm, strange explosive utterances, they were a motley company. Professor Morton Calhoun made a circle of his hands, and squinted through it with one screwed-up eye, the attitude of an artist before a masterpiece, and after a long scrutiny, shook his head and groaned with joy.

Through this group of men moved Bull Langdon, in high good humor, dominant and arrogant, intimate with everyone, yet close to no one. When the big shed was full, and the circle about the ropes entirely surrounded his exhibit, Bull Langdon nonchalantly stepped into the ring, where the Prince followed Cyril Stanley tamely about. Cyril had a curiously hypnotic influence over the animal, and could even make him submit to having his head caressed and his nose patted.

On either horn two bright ribbons had been coyly twisted and tied, and these gave the animal a peculiarly festive look. As Bull Langdon stepped into the ring, a murmur of admiring and respectful applause broke forth. He approached the Prince from the left side, and reaching out a careless hand pulled the ribbon from one of the horns.

"We ain't raisin' no dolls!" said the cowman. "This is a Bull!" and he reached for the other horn.

"Careful, boss!" warned Cyril. "He's not used to all this excitement, and I got my hands full keeping him calm."

"Who's talking?" growled the cattleman, spitting with amusement. "Are you trying to teach Bull Langdon the cattle game, you young whelp? I knowed it before the day you was born."

The young bull's head had suddenly uplifted. He sniffed the air, his neck bristling. Slowly, growing in depth and power, there burst from his throat a mighty roar that shook the tent, and drove the color from the faces about that ring, as with an almost concerted movement there was a backing from the lines and an exodus from the tent. Bull Langdon, as swiftly as a cat, had backed to the lines and was over them. Cyril was alone in the inclosure with the roaring bull. Half talking, half singing, not for a moment did his hand relax its grip upon the chain. Slowly the animal's head turned in his direction and again dropped submissively. There was a breath of relief about the lines, and Cyril led the bull back to his stall, fastening him securely to his post by the ring in his nose.

Bull Langdon was swearing foully, but his fury against Cyril and the Prince subsided at the approach of Professor Calhoun, the greatest authority on pure bred cattle in the world.

"Sir," said the little man, glaring at Bull Langdon through double-lensed glasses, scrutinizing the cattleman with the scientific air with which he examined cattle, "I will not hesitate to predict that your animal's progress throughout the United States—I will go farther and say, throughout the world—will be one of unbroken triumph. It has been my pleasure to look upon the most perfect Hereford specimen in the world. I congratulate you, sir."

Bull Langdon grunted, rose on the balls of his feet, chewed on the plug in his cheek, spat, and, his chest swelling, roared across at one of the Bar Q "hands."

"Take the gentleman—take all of the gentlemen—" he added, with a sweeping gesture of his arm toward the crowd, "to the booze tent. The treat's on Bull Langdon. Fill up, gentlemen, on the Bar Q."

Meanwhile, satiated with gloating over his great treasure, he bethought of another possession and upon which at this stage he set if possible an even greater value. True, he reckoned Nettie as "scrub" stock, while the Prince was of lordly lineage. On the auction block, the prince might bring a price that was worth a king's ransom; yet as he thought of the big, white-skinned, blue-eyed girl, the cowman knew that he would not give her up for all the champions in the cattle world. He owned the Prince; but though he had held the girl in his arms, he knew in his heart of hearts that she had never been his. That was what fretted and tormented him—the thought that his brand upon Nettie could never be permanent.

It was a boast of the cowman that what he wanted he took, and what he took, he held. He had wanted Nettie Day. He had taken her by mad force, as a barbarian might have fallen upon a Christian slave, yet he knew, with a sense of smoldering hatred and fury that a single hair upon the head of the young Bar Q hand was more to her than the Bull and all his possessions. He was torn with a desire to return to Bar Q, and again take forcible possession of the girl; but the prize herd was now almost ready for the tour. It would be disastrous, ruinous to his reputation and career, if, at this psychological moment, anything should interfere with the departure of the herd, and there was no man in the outfit who could be trusted to take the place of Bull Langdon himself. Well, it would be the matter of a month or two only, and he would be back.

He found himself at the Prince's stall, glowering down upon the back of the kneeling Cyril, who was brushing down his charge's legs with an oiled brush. Presently Cyril looked up, and seeing his employer, he arose. The Bull cleared his throat noisily.

"Well, how about it, bo? You goin' along with Prince to the States?"

Cyril waited in his slow way, before replying, and as he hesitated, the Bull threw in savagely:

"Bonus of $500 to the 'hand' that takes special charge of the Prince and another $10 raise to his wages."

$500! It was a mighty sum of money, and the young man felt his heart thump at the thought of what it would buy for Nettie.

"When would you want me to leave?"

"Two weeks."

"When'd we be back?"

"Two months. I'll go along as far as St. Louis; leave for a spell, and join you at Chicago, comin' back with the outfit."

"I'd want a week off."

"What for?"

"I got a bit of fencing to finish on my homestead, and I got to ride over to Bar Q."

"What you want at Bar Q?"

Cyril's straight glance met his.

"My girl's there."

"Who'd you mean?"

"Nettie Day. We're planning to get married this winter."

The savage in Bull Langdon was barely held in check. He could scarcely control the impulse to throttle the life out of this cool-eyed youth, who dared to claim for his own what was the Bull's.

"You're countin' your chickens before they're hatched, ain't you?" he snarled. "Mebbe the gell's stuck on someone else."

"Not on your life she's not," said Cyril with calm conviction. "She and me are promised."

"Beat it, then," roared the Bull, "and the sooner you're back, the sooner we'll start. I'll hold the job for you for two weeks—not a day longer."

"You can count on me," said Cyril. "I'll be on the job."