"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.
CHAPTER XXVII
The meeting with Nettie on the road doubled the Bull's determination to possess her again The exhilaration of the chance encounter and the frustration of his plans when, returning, he found the little car gone, had roused his desire to a pitch of insanity. Everything else was forgotten; his cattle, his ranches, his great money losses, the impossibility of obtaining help, even the deterioration of his prized bulls at Barstairs—all these cares and anxieties ceased to exist in the overpowering passion that consumed him.
Bull Langdon was incapable of love in its finer sense, but in his blind and brutal way, he was madly in love with Nettie Day. His passion for the girl was like a fire that burned and raged within him, seeking an outlet where there was none and for the time being the man was like a maniac.
He thought of the girl ceaselessly, chortling with delight as he pictured her beauty, now sweeter than ever before in its young maturity. He had not noticed a new quality of spirituality that suffering had added to her loveliness, a certain light that seemed to radiate from her; all he had seen was that the summer's work in the fields had reddened her cheeks and brightened her eyes, and that her lips were like a scarlet flame.