Of the thirty or forty men previously employed at the Bar Q, only two remained that winter—a Chinaman and Batt Leeson at the Bull Camp. The foothill ranch was completely deserted, and the Bull was left alone to look after his several thousand head of cattle.

When the plague reached the country regions, there was a general exodus from the ranches, for tales were rife of stricken men corralled like cattle in bunkhouses and barns and left to shift for themselves.

That winter the cattle in the foothills roamed the range like mavericks, rustling for their water and feed. But even then they were better off than the purebred stock at Barstairs, being hardy stuff bred to the range and the open fields, where they found ample feed. The pampered purebred cattle had always been used to care and nursing, having been practically raised by hand, and were accustomed to feed from troughs heaped up with food by the watchful attendants and hands. Now penned in narrow pastures and cattle sheds, where the ground was bare as stone, they were irregularly left to the tender mercies of the half-dazed and always drunken Batt Leeson, and spasmodically fed and seldom watered.

Chum Lee, paralyzed with fear of the "black plague," which had cut down all of his "boys" at the Bull Camp, lived in terror that it would overtake him also. Chum Lee had no desire to die in the white man's land; he wanted to repose in peace under the sacred soil of his ancestors. He would have run away from the camp, but the barren country, with its vast blanket of snow, gave no hope of any refuge, and he feared Bull Langdon as though he were an evil spirit.

Back and forth between the two ranches the Bull's great car tore like a Juggernaut of Fate. It did not in the least concern the cattleman that his men had died like flies, or that three—quarters of the country was down with the plague. What alarmed and incensed him was the fact that his cattle, the magnificent herd that he had built up from the three or four head rustled from the Indians, were roaming the range uncared-for and neglected. Many of them, drifting before a bitter blizzard, had perished in coulee and canyon, and worse still was the deterioration of the purebreds. The loss of a single head of this stock meant several thousand dollars.

Nor was the Bull exclusively occupied with the loss of his cattle; he brooded unceasingly over Nettie Day, though the vision of her refused to leave his tortured mind and at the thought of the child she had borne he would rage up and down like a caged beast. The child had made her more than ever his, he gloated; yet how should he ever gain possession of her? He knew that the "Loring woman's" words had not been idle, and in imagination he saw the black walls of the penitentiary looming in the future. Nevertheless, he intended to have her; though the whole world might stand against him, he would get her back. He would bide his time, and his day would come—— The Loring woman would not always be on guard. His day would come.

Nettie was nursing the stricken farmers; the pariah and despised of the foothills was going from ranch to ranch caring for those who had condemned her. She had sat up for many nights soothing and ministering to their suffering; she had closed the eyes of their best beloved, and her tears had dropped upon the faces of their dead. In their hours of deepest anguish and agony, they had clung to her cool, strong hands, as to an anchor.

The country people had reversed their opinion and judgment of Nettie Day; her past was forgotten; she was their Nettie now.

By the end of January the plague had reached its peak. Whole families had persisted and others were slowly creeping back to health and hope again. It would not be long, Dr. McDermott promised Nettie, before she would be free to return to her baby and her friend.

She began to count the days, and to scan the skies for that shadowy arch across the heavens that in Alberta precedes a "Chinook" and is the forerunner of mild weather, for Dr. McDermott was expected to come for her with the first Chinook. Nettie thought with ceaseless yearning of her baby; away from him, he had taken visible shape in her mind, and, at last able to overlook the horror of his paternity, she loved him with all the passion of her young warm heart. When the Chinook at last broke up the fierce cold Dr. McDermott kept his word, and on the day he was to come for her, Nettie walked on air. She was going home—to her baby!

When the doctor arrived, however, his face was grave, and his heart lay heavy within him. His labors were far from done. The Bow Claire Lumber Camp had succumbed to the plague, and nearly a hundred men were down.

Calgary had promised help, but its former promises had not proved reliable, and in all that vast country few would be found willing to go deep into the heart of the timber lands to nurse the lumber-jacks.

The doctor's Ford chugged to the back door of the Munson farmhouse, where Nettie had been nursing the last of her patients. She was there to meet him, her old plaid cape about her and the woolen tam upon her head. Her face was aglow, and her eyes shone as bright as stars; he had telephoned her to expect him by noon, and had told her to be ready and not keep him waiting.

Nettie had kissed the surviving three little Munsons and their mother, suddenly filled with passionate remorse for her past cruelty to the girl who had now saved their lives. She had shaken hands with the husky voiced father, who had simply and reverently begged God's blessing for her, and to hide her own tears, she had run from them and shut the door between them. Now she was in the Ford, with the robes tucked comfortably about her; breathlessly she squeezed the arm of her old friend.

"Oh, doc, just to think, I'm goin' home now—home to Angel and my baby! Oh, it's just heaven to be here beside you and on our way."

The "doc" had one of the new self-starters and there was no need of cranking this year. They buzzed down the road in the "tin Lizzie," making a great racket and leaving in their wake a malodorous cloud of smoke. For some time they went along in silence, and gradually Nettie's happy mood fell from her as she noted the gravity of the doctor's face. She touched his arm timidly, though her heart began to misgive her.

"Can you really spare me now, doc?"

There was no answer from her old friend, and Nettie pressed his arm, repeating her question.

"Can you, doc?" And then, as still he did not answer: "Is any one else down now?"

"Nettie." Dr. McDermott had slowed up. He tried to hide the anxiety in his face, for he did not intend to ask any further sacrifice of the girl, but he wanted her to know the facts. "Nettie, the Bow Claire Lumber Camp is down."

"The Bow Claire!"

The color receded from her face, her hand went to her heart as her thoughts flew instantly to Cyril. Slowly she realized the meaning of the doctor's solemn words.

"Nearly a hundred men, Nettie, and not a soul to care for them."

There was a long pause, while Dr. McDermott looked steadily ahead. The car was pounding and sending out jets of steam from its lately frozen radiator.

"Doc," cried the girl suddenly, "this ain't the road to Bow Claire. Turn your car around!"

"A promise is a promise," said the doctor. "I promised I'd bring you home to your child, lass, and I'll keep my word if you say so."

"But I don't say so. I don't want to go home—yet. I shouldn't be happy—even with my baby. My place is where I am needed most, and you should know where that is, doc."

"Dear lass," said the doctor gently. "They're needing you sore at Bow Claire."

"Then turn your car around, doc, and don't you m-mind if I seem to be c-cryin'. It's just because—because I'm excited, and oh! I'm so g-glad of the chance—of the opportunity, doc, to go 'long with you to Bow Claire."

Dr. McDermott blinked through his misty glasses. He swung his wheel sharply around, backed along the slippery, thawing ground, and went over a culvert into a snow bank on the side of the road.

There was a grinding cough of the engine, and it stopped dead. Again and again Dr. McDermott started the car, and back and forth it chugged in a vain effort to pull out of the slippery snow pit. From under a pile of produce and baggage, the doctor produced a snow shovel and began the process of "digging out," making a road before and behind where the car might back and get a fair start onto the road again. As he shoveled the snow, digging under the car and all around it, they heard the honk of an approaching motorist and gradually Bull Langdon's huge touring car swung into sight. At the sound of the automobile horn, Dr. McDermott had straightened up, intending to ask for aid, but when he saw who it was he doggedly resumed his digging alone.

Bull Langdon took in the situation at a glance, and the sight of Nettie cooled the fever that had possessed him for days. She was visibly terrified at seeing him, and shrank back inside the Ford. The Bull observed her agitation with fierce delight and all the old feeling of domination over her came back to him. He got down from his car and examined the spot where the back wheel seemed to have wedged itself in.

"Stuck, are you?" he gloated.

"We'll be out in a minute."

"Not on your life you won't. You'll not pull out of that today."

"Very well, if that's what you think, suppose you haul us out."

"Ain't got a rope, and my engine won't stand the gaff."

Dr. McDermott's wrathful stare met the Bull's insolent smile. He turned his back upon him, and applied himself with savage energy to his work.

"Where you headed for?"

"None of your damned business."

"It ain't, heh?"

The Bull was now in high good humor. His hand rested upon the Ford, close to where Nettie was crouching behind the curtain. His bold eyes held hers fascinated with terror.

"Tell you what I'll do," he suggested after a moment's pause, "I'll take you aboard my car and pack you wherever you're goin'. You can 'phone the garage at Cochrane to send out and haul in your Lizzie."

Dr. McDermott could not see Nettie, but he could feel the silent, desperate appeal which her fear of the Bull prevented her crying aloud.

"No," he felt her imploring him. "No—never! I would rather stay here forever than go with him."

He looked the cattleman up and down with the same stare of cold contempt and reprobation as that which had caused Bull Langdon to quail before Angella Luring.

"We'll pull out without your help," said Dr. McDermott curtly. "Don't need you. Don't want you."

"Hmph!" chuckled the Bull. He cut a chunk of chewing tobacco, and bit calmly into it. He spat, and blinked his eyes at Nettie, then buttoning up his big beaver fur coat, he moved towards his car. Climbing aboard, he grinned down at the girl as he pushed the self-starter with his foot. The engine instantly responded with its soft purring and the great car glided along the road. A madness raged through the Bull as he drove; his pent-up passion of months was finding an outlet at last. The faster the car flew, the greater was his sense of relief and elation, as he told himself he would find the car still stalled in the same spot at nightfall when he returned for the girl.

As soon as the Bull's car had disappeared from sight Nettie was out of the Ford.

"Oh, doc, he'll be back. I know he will."

"Let him. Nothin' to be afraid of. Feel in the pocket of the can—no, the other one. Give me that—"

Nettie passed the revolver to him, and the doctor thrust it into his hip pocket.

"Now, lass, can you give me a hand?"

Together they pushed with might and main upon the car; it went up a few paces, and slid back into the snow. Again they pushed, and this time, at the doctor's order, Nettie found and thrust under the wheel a stone that held it in place. The doctor then climbed aboard, and with Nettie pushing behind, the Ford snorted forward a few feet, slipped back, but jerked ahead again. There was a tremendous grinding noise, and the whirling wheel went over the side of the culvert; the car jumped forward. With a whoop of triumph, Dr. McDermott made room for Nettie and they were off again. With loud clanking the flivver flew along those crazy roads, panted up incredibly steep and slippery grades, plunged into snow fields and on into the timber land, where only the narrow cattle trails made a path through the woods to the lumber camp. They "made the grade" in two and a half hours of hard riding, and pulled into the dead-still camp with a cheering honking of their horn.