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.