"Beat it, then," roared the Bull, "and the sooner you're back, the sooner we'll start. I'll hold the job for you for two weeks—not a day longer."
"You can count on me," said Cyril. "I'll be on the job."
CHAPTER XI
Every day Nettie arose at six and went about her dull duties. There was the cream to separate, the pails and separator to clean and scald; there was the butter to make; the chickens to feed, washing, ironing and cleaning. The canning season was at hand and the Indians rode in with wild cranberries, gooseberries, raspberries and saskatoons. From day to day she picked over and washed the fruit, packed it in syrup in jars, and set them in the wash boiler on the range.
Time accustoms us even to suffering, and one of the penalties of youth and health is that one thrives and lives and pursues one's way, even though the heart within one be dead. Vaguely Nettie groped for a solution to her tragedy. She knew that it was not something that could be pushed away into some recess of the mind; it was something unforgettable, a scar upon the soul rather than the body. Of Cyril she could think only with the most intense anguish of mind, and knew that she could never face the man she loved and tell him what had befallen her. Already he had come to exist in her mind only as a loved one dead. He was no longer for her. She had lost Cyril through this act of Bull Langdon.
Two weeks after the departure of the Bull for the purebred camp, Nettie was startled at her work by the insistent ringing of the telephone, which had been unusually silent since then. Her first thought was that the Bull was calling from Barstairs, and the thought of his hated voice, even upon the wire, held her back. The telephone repeated its ring, and with lagging feet Nettie at last answered it.
"Hello!"
"Is that the Bar Q?"