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.