The sound was not repeated and Bull Langdon came at last out of the sheltering woods. A wide field that flanked on one side the Banff Highway lay before him, on the other side of which were the fenced lands of the Indian Reserve.
As he moved through the thick woods, pausing every now and then to listen for treading hoofs behind him or for a breath of that low, menacing murmur that preceded the terrible roar, the cattleman's overwrought fancy had pictured the bull upon his trail, nor was it premonition that held him, but the fearful certainty that the savage animal was following close upon his tracks.
Bull Langdon considered the open space of the field and reckoned up his chances of making a swift dash across to the road, and across the road to the line of Indian fencing. A certain safety from his pursuer. For an instant he hesitated, then with lowered head, like one of his own blindly driven cattle, the cowman sped across the field. Not, however, swiftly enough for the Hereford bull that had trailed him.
On the edge of the timber land, Prince Perfection Bar Q the IV stood in a proud and questioning attitude with his stern eyes fixed upon the moving speck before him. Slowly he marked his prey, then his head dropped, and with a lumbering gait, yet incredibly swift, he made straight for his quarry. The cowman, his back to the oncoming bull, intent only on reaching the shelter of the barbed wire fences on the south side of the Banff Highway before it was too late, did not dare look round, as like a missile released from a colossal catapult the great bull shot across the field. Sideways and still on the run, with his lowered head swinging from side to side, he drove his horns clear through the cowman's ribs. There was a horrible rending sound, and suddenly Bull Langdon was tossed into the air to fall to earth like a stone. Again and again the savage bull gored and tossed him until he was rent into pieces.
A master vengeance was in that act of justice, though no torture of Bull Langdon's body could atone for the torture he had inflicted upon Nettie Day's soul.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
"Hear me, lass," said Dr. McDermott, his hands resting upon the bent shoulders of Angella Loring. "In the old land, I was a stable lad and you the grand young lady of the manor house; my father was your father's groom, and all the McDermotts before me served the Lorings; but here in Alberta we're naught but mon and woman, and as mon to woman, lass, I'm asking you to be my wife."