"Bull Langdon turned his steers into my crop. He has ruined us."
"The hound! The dirty, cowardly hound! I'll have him jailed for this."
"You can't, doctor," said Angella wearily, "we didn't have the legal fence—just two wires. You warned us. I wish I had taken your advice."
"Then I'll beat him to a pulp, with my own hands!" said the enraged doctor.
Angella looked up at him with a pitying smile.
"No, man you shan't do that. I wouldn't have you soil your hands touching him."
Her head dropped, and for a long time no word was spoken in the little shack. Dr. McDermott, tongue-tied, stared down at the bowed head of Angella. Presently she said, without looking up, but in a sort of hopeless, dead way:
"Dr. McDermott, I'm through. I can't go on fighting. I'm beat."
"Through!" roared her friend, who had once preached so violently against her laboring as a man, "lass, you've only begun! You're of a fighting race—a grand race, and you'll go down fighting. You're not of the breed to admit you're beat."