The purebred heifers and cows had their own home at Barstairs, where also was the camp of the purebred bulls.
At the foothill ranch only the younger stuff was left, the yearling and rising two-year-old heifers and steers, and these sturdy young stuff "rustled" over the winter range, finding sufficient sustenance to carry them through the winter. The cook car was closed, and the men "batched" in the bunkhouses but came to the main ranch house for bread, butter and general supplies.
Nettie, long ignorant of her condition, had from day to day passed out the supplies to the men, unconscious of and indifferent to their scrutiny. She failed to realize that what had become apparent to her mistress, had also been revealed to the cunning eyes of the Bar Q "hands."
Bunkhouses in a ranching country are breeding places for the worst kind of gossip and scandal, to which disgusting commerce men even more than women are addicted. It was, therefore, not long before Nettie's name became first whispered and then carelessly bandied among them. At her name eyes rolled, winks and coarse laughter were the rule where but a little while ago she had been the object of admiring respect and aspiration.
Cyril Stanley's name was also on each man's tongue, and they all took it for granted that he was responsible for Nettie's condition. A change in their manner toward the girl followed the loose talk about her; there were certain meaning looks, a new familiarity of speech, and presently worse than that. "Pink-eyed" Tom, a man whose dirty boasts concerning women were a source of endless fun among the men, came to the house one day for a side of bacon. He followed Nettie into the big storeroom, where the Bar Q meat supply hung. As she passed the bacon to him, Pink-Eye managed to seize her hand, and with a broad grin, he squeezed it, and attempted to draw her to him. It was only a momentary grasp, but with the chuckle that went with it the girl understood and turned first deathly white and scarlet with anger.
"Guess you ain't used to man-handling—oh, no!" said Tom, and as she fiercely withdrew from his grasp, he laughed in her face, with an ugly meaning leer that set her heart frantically beating.
She flew from the storeroom to the kitchen, and stood with her back pressed against the door, holding it closed. A sickening fear of the whole race of men consumed her. She longed to escape to some place beyond their sight or ken where she might at least hide herself and be allowed the boon of suffering unmolested and unseen. She had a passionate longing to escape from the Bar Q—to leave forever the hateful place where she had been so cruelly betrayed, where she had suffered almost beyond endurance. But the thought of leaving Mrs. Langdon hurt her more than the thought of staying, and her mind wandered in the hopeless search of a solution to her appalling problem. She thought of her friend "Angel" Loring, with her cropped hair and men's clothing, and for the first time comprehended what might drive a woman to do as the Englishwoman had done.
"A bad report runs a thousand miles a minute," says an oriental proverb. Certainly that is true of a ranching country. From bunkhouse to farm and ranch house raced the tale of a girl's fall; it was a morsel of exciting news to those dull souls shut in by the rigid hand of the winter.
On the first Chinook day, women harnessed teams to democrats and single drivers to buggies, and took the road to Bar Q. Never had that ranch been favored with so many visitors. Neither Nettie nor her mistress suspected that their guests had come to see for themselves whether there was truth in the story concerning the girl which had percolated over the telephone and been carried by riders intent upon retailing the latest sensation of the foothills. Caste exists not in a ranching country like Alberta, save among a few rare and exclusive souls, and a hired girl on a ranch has her own social standing in the community, especially if she is that rarity, a pretty girl. So Nettie's plight was of as supreme an interest to the ranch and farm wives as if instead of a poor servant girl she had been any prosperous farmer's daughter. Hired girls are potential wives for the best of the ranchmen, and many a farmer's wife has begun her career on a cook car.
Nettie, cutting cake and brewing tea in the kitchen, paused, tray in hand, white-faced, behind the door, as the voices of the women close at hand floated through.