"Nothing to worry about," she said carelessly. "He's afraid of my gun, Nettie, the big coward!"
"Oh, Angel, I'm not afraid for myself, but for the baby. He's a terrible man when he's in a passion, and he never gives up nothing that's his."
"But you're not his," said Angel sharply, "and neither is the baby. He's mine. You said I could have him, and I won't give him up."
"Oh, Angel, I don't want you to. He's better with you than anyone else, and although I do love him—" Nettie's voice was breaking piteously—"yet there are times when I can't forget that he's the Bull's——"
"He's not. He's all yours, Nettie. There's not a trace of that wild brute in our baby. I don't see how you can even think it. Just look at the darling," and she held up the laughing, fair-haired baby at arm's length. The days spent out of doors in the field had done much to give him the health and strength that had not been his at birth. He had Nettie's eyes and hair, but not her seriousness, for he crowed and laughed all day long, the happiest and most contented baby in the world.
Nettie looked at him now with swimming eyes.
"He is sweet!" she said in a choking voice, and kneeling beside Angella, on whose lap the baby lay, she buried her head in his little soft body.
Jake did not return the following night, nor the night after. Though each sought to hide her anxiety from the other, the two women kept a constant look-out along the trail, straining their ears for the comforting sound of the motor, which on a still day could sometimes be heard at two or even three miles' distance.
They would have gone away somewhere, but for the fact that the threshers were due in a few days' time, and it would have meant ruin to leave the crop unthreshed. Once the threshing was done, and the grain safely stored in the granary, or sold direct to the commission men who had already called upon Angella, they would be free to make a trip to Calgary, and there seek counsel and protection.
Meanwhile, every night they bolted and barricaded their door, and with the baby between them, with loaded guns side by side on the bed, hardly slept through the night. Wide-eyed and silent in the darkness they kept their vigil, each hoping that the other slept.