"No, I should think not."
"But Mrs. Langdon believed it. She used to say that God loved him as well as any of us, but that Bull was 'in error,' and that some day God would open his eyes, and then he would be powerful good."
"Hm! He'd have to open his eyes pretty wide, I'm thinking," said Angel. "But try and sleep now, Nettie. I'm feeling a bit drowsy myself. Maybe we can snatch a wink or two before morning. Good-night, Nettie."
"Good-night, Angel. I think it's true. God is in our hearts. I believe it."
"I believe he's in yours, anyway," said Angella softly. "Good-night, old girl."
But God dwelt not in the heart of Bull Langdon. Under the silver light of the moon, that lay like a spell upon the sleeping land, and across the shining valley, came the cowman, driving a great herd of steers. Penned in corrals for shipment to the Calgary stockyards, they had been without food for two days, and now they came down the hill, eager and impatient for the feed that had been too long denied them.
The Bull, on his huge bay mare, drove them rapidly before him whirling and cracking his long whip over their heads. The Banff highway was deserted. He chose the gritty roads, and, heads down, the hungry steers nosed the bare ground, till they came to the level lands, and turned into the road allowances between the farms. The grain fields, odorous of cut hay and grain, inflamed the hunger-maddened steers, and they moaned and sniffed as they were driven mercilessly along.
All day and most of the night they traveled without pause and in the first gray of the dawn they arrived at the frail fences of the Lady Angella Loring. Down went the two insecure lines of barbed wire that the women had set up, never counting they would be needed to withstand the impetuous stampede of wild cattle.
When Angella and Nettie stepped out of their shack later that morning their shocked eyes were greeted with Bull Langdon's vindictive work. The road was still gray with the raised dust of the departing animals turning off the road allowance for the main trail, the Bar Q brand showing clearly on their left ribs. Filled to the neck with the reaped grain, they were rolling heavily along the way into Calgary.
The two girls stood before their barren fields, overwhelmed by the magnitude of the disaster that had befallen them. Not a word was said, but Angella, as if grown suddenly old, turned blindly to the house, while Nettie threw herself down desperately upon the ground and burst into bitter tears.