Onoto Watanna

“ Nettie flew about the mean room, her cheeks aflame, her eyes shining, her heart singing like a bird's within her, while the children crowded about their guest, on whom, in his buckskin shirt, fur chapps, gauntlets and cowboy hat, their young prairie eyes gazed as upon a hero.
It may, moreover, be recorded that Nettie was by no means the only one through whose veins an exhilarating elixir seemed to be bounding like champagne. Young Cyril Stanley at that moment was violently aware of a thumping organ to the left of his cardiac region.
Love knows not time. ”

“ It wells up in the human heart like the wave of the ocean that may not be beaten down. Nettie Day, hurrying about the kitchen, preparing a meal for the hungry stranger, and the stranger, with a "kid" on either knee and the others pressed as closely to him as space would allow, displaying his big jackknife, quirt, beaded hatband and ticking watch to the delighted youngsters, looked at each other across the space of that poor and meager room, it seemed, though they could not have expressed it in words, that somehow life had become a poem, a glad dancing song. ”

“ It's queer, as I have run along, I have omitted all mention of one in Alberta whom I should call a friend. Just a poor, illiterate young girl. I never can forget Nettie Day as I first saw her. Sickness, delirium even, may cast a glamour over things. It may be then our imagination pictures things as they are not; but nevertheless, Nettie's face, bending above my own, with its gentle look of tenderness and compassion, seemed to me as sweet as the "blessed damozel's" as she looked down from heaven to the earth beneath. ”

“ Isn't the wind terrible!"
"It's dying down, I think."
"Oh, it's fiercer than ever," cried the girl wildly. "It's just terrible. I can't bear to hear it. I been awake all night. Just seems as if that wind was shoutin' and screamin' and makin' mock of me, Mrs. Langdon. It's banging upon my—heart. I hate the wind. I think it's alive—a horrible, wild thing. It fights and laughs at me. It's driving me mad."
"Ah, Nettie, you are not yourself these days. It is not the wind, but what is in your heart that speaks. We can even control the wind if we wish. ”

“ A clean, small cabin on a quarter section of land; a cow or two; a few pigs; chickens; fields of grain, oats, thick and tall; gleaming, silvery barley; the blue-flowering flax; waves of golden wheat. Overall men upon the implements, and herself in a clean kitchen, cooking a meal for the harvest hands, and always her dream embraced within its circle one whose friendly face was tanned and freckled by the sun, whose smile was wide and all-embracing, and who looked at Nettie with eyes that spoke a language that needed no tongue. ”

“ To farm is to gamble on the largest scale possible, for the earth may be said to be our board, the seed our dice and the elements, the soil, the parasites, the hail, the frost and the drought, these are the cards stacked against us. But, like all gamblers, we are reaching out for a prize that enthralls and lures us, and that "pot of gold at the end of our rainbow" is the harvest—the wonderful, glorious golden harvest of Alberta. ”

“ Even while he told himself that he now hated Nettie, his heart went back to her—in aching tenderness about her. He pictured her as he had known her—her hair shining in the sun, and that look which love alone brings to the human eyes, lighting up her face and making it divinely beautiful to her lover. He recalled her at the little shack, where she had helped him fashion some of the rude pieces of furniture; riding across the prairie, their horses' necks touching as they pressed as close to each other as the horses would permit ”

“ Straight ahead, under a sunset that overspread the [Pg 49] whole sky with a glow of red and gold, the mighty Rocky Mountains rose like a vast dream before them. The girl and the man rode side by side into that sunset, while the perfect stillness of the Alberta evening closed in about them. Nettie lost herself once more in her old aspirations as the nearness of the long-yearned-for hills drew nearer. Sweet and wistful thoughts of Cyril calmed and reassured her. The man riding beside her was forgotten, forgotten everything but the spell of the Alberta twilight, and the dear thoughts of her love. ”

“ The harvest was close at hand, and for the first time since she had come to Alberta, Angella Loring was to have a crop.
Billowing waves of golden wheat, going forty bushels or more to the acre, lay spread out before her, barley, glistening, and silvery, oats as tall as a man and thick and heavy, the grain, like living creatures, stirring and murmuring drowsily in the sunshine as the warm wind passed over it. ”

“ Under the mellow evening light that suffuses the Alberta country at the harvest season, the girls, having gleaned bravely and well, rode in from their last day of harvesting.
Sound carries far in the prairie country, and they could hear distinctly the buzz of the threshing machine eight miles away, droning like a comfortable bee, working steadily through the night. In a few days, the threshers would "pull in" to Angella's ranch and the harvested grain would be poured into the temporary granaries that they had constructed from a portion of the barn. ”

“ There was to be an auction of the poor stuff upon the place, to raise the price of the mortgage upon the land.
Nettie felt helpless and forsaken. She missed her father and her little brothers and sisters cruelly, and dreaded to think how the baby might be faring, so dependent had it been upon her own care. Her gaze wandered irresistibly off to the hills, watching, a lump in her throat, for Cyril to come. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Not a word was said, but Angella, as if grown suddenly old, turned blindly to the house, while Nettie threw herself down desperately upon the ground and burst into bitter tears.
Her little work-roughened hands fallen loosely by her side, Angella sat at the crude wooden table of her own making, and tried to figure a way out of the appalling problem now facing her. She had bought her implements on the installment plan, and the money was now due; she owed the municipality for her seed; a chattel mortgage was on her stock. ”

“ The "hands" of the Bar Q were early risers and "hit the bunks" as soon as the light left the sky.
The last sign of life had vanished. Even the coyote was silent and the darkness grew ever deeper.
Nettie turned from her window at last. Her long plaits of hair hung down, like a Marguerite's, on her shoulders. In her white night dress she looked very virginal and sweet. She had raised her hands and [Pg 77] begun to coil up the golden braids when something—a stealthy, cautious motion—caused her to pause. ”

“ The Bull, on his huge bay mare, drove them rapidly before him whirling and cracking his long whip over their heads. The Banff highway was deserted. He chose the gritty roads, and, heads down, the hungry steers nosed the bare ground, till they came to the level lands, and turned into the road allowances between the farms. The grain fields, odorous of cut hay and grain, inflamed the hunger-maddened steers, and they moaned and sniffed as they were driven mercilessly along. ”

“ Streams were running along the roads, the sloughs were filling to the top, the cattle no longer nibbled in the neighborhood of the fenced-in hay and straw stacks, but hit down into the upspringing grass, green already in this wonderful land. Eight-horse teams were pulling plow, disc and harrow out into the fields, preparatory for an early seeding. Overhead a great, warm sun sent its benevolent rays abroad, filling sky and earth with a warm glow; the land was bathed in sunlight. Small marvel that someone had fondly named it: "Sunny Alberta, the Land of Promise." ”

“ The Lady Angella Luring arose at five in the morning, put on overalls, sheepskin coat, woolen gauntlets, and heavy overshoes. She tramped through the steadily falling snow to her barn, which housed a cow, a sow, a mare heavy in foal, a saddle horse and the poultry. ”

“ No lass, declared the doctor, in her sober senses would disfigure herself by cutting off her head the hair that her Maker had planted there. No true woman would wear a mon's clothes. Mere contact with a wild brute like Bull Langdon would muddy any pure woman in the land. Her obsession—which is what he termed her aversion to his own sex—and her unnatural life alone was a pathological matter, for which she needed to be treated as for the unfortunate illness she had contracted in London. ”

“ True, he reckoned Nettie as "scrub" stock, while the Prince was of lordly lineage. On the auction block, the prince might bring a price that was worth a king's ransom; yet as he thought of the big, white-skinned, blue-eyed girl, the cowman knew that he would not give her up for all the champions in the cattle world. He owned the Prince; but though he had held the girl in his arms, he knew in his heart of hearts that she had never been his. That was what fretted and tormented him—the thought that his brand upon Nettie could never be permanent. ”

“ Cyril turned this over heavily in his mind, shaking his head as though the problem were beyond him, but he changed his course away from the hill, deciding to spend a few days at his homestead. He would stay in the little house he had built for Nettie; he wanted to look over the place that was to have been their home. He would go to Bar Q later. At least, Nettie would not refuse to bid him good-by.
As he rode along, his hat over his eyes, smarting tears bit at the lids, and the heart of the lad who used once to go singing along the trail and about his work was heavy as lead within him. ”

“ Now I may seem as that Bar Q hand said, like a "tough old nut." No doubt I look like one, but I know the English trick of freezing ordinary people by a mere look. It is a trick, like the Englishman's monocle and the strange part is only an English person can do it. You just stare, stonily, at the insignificant atom before you. I begin at the feet, and travel contemptuously up the whole despised body, till I reach the abashed and propitiating face. One need not say a single word. ”

“ In the days of semi-consciousness that had followed her first seizure, the Englishwoman could endure the sight and touch of no one but the girl with the Madonna face. Without realizing what was amiss, all she knew was that Nettie was now as helpless as she had been when the girl had cared for her, and without a word or a question she helped the doctor lift Nettie out of the car and to carry her into the house. ”

“ In the spring, our land is excessively fragrant. The black, loamy soil fairly calls to one to lay the seed within its fertile bosom. Anything will grow in [Pg 87] Alberta. It's a thrilling sight to see the grain prick up sturdy and strong. When first my own showed its green head above the earth, I suffered such exhilaration that I could have thrown myself upon the ground, and kissed the good earth. ”

“ The last generation of the Lorings were a soft-handed, dependent race. I come of an older, primitive breed, I am a reversion to type, for I love to labor with my hands. Had I been a man, I might have been a ditch or a grave digger. I love the earth. When I die, I do not want to be cremated. I want to go back to the soil.
I talk here of compensations and of my ranch which I say is what I have to live for, yet life has not been sweet or easy for me in Alberta. It's been a battle with a grim antagonist—for poverty and sickness and cold [Pg 88] —what can be grimmer than these? ”

“ The Bull shouted, purple with rage:
"There ain't no man livin' I'm afraid of, and there ain't no man in the country strong enough to lay a finger on me, see. I could beat every son of a gun in Alberta to a pulp."
"I don't doubt that. You look as if you might have the strength of a gorilla; but then where a hand will not serve a rope will, and you know it will be short work for your own men to hang you to a tree when young Cyril Stanley ropes you. ”

“ The roar of one of the leaders sent the cowman cautiously back into the shelter of the brush. He was unprepared to meet a stampede, but he marked the place to which the cattle had strayed, and made a mental note to round them up in a few days.
He was now but four miles from Morley, still traveling along the edges of the woods, when suddenly a low moaning call, growing ever in volume and power, until it swelled into a mighty roar that shook the bristling branches of the trees, smote the still night, and reverberated in the surrounding hills. ”

“ If the city authorities were indifferent to the fate of the country regions, on which, by the way Calgary was wholly dependent, there was one man at least who kept the welfare of his beloved country close to his heart. The erstwhile Scotch stable lad, who for many years had dedicated his thought, his labor and his heart to the farming and ranching people of Alberta, begrudged himself even a few hours sleep. ”

“ As bit by bit the familiar pieces were brought from the house and dumped upon the ground for the amusement and inspection of the farmers, Nettie, unable to bear the pain of that pitiful sale, sought refuge in the barn, where she stood looking down at the fat sow, her father's especial pride and care, and the thirteen young ones that had come with the spring. ”

“ If he could not take the girl by force, there was one way by which she could be lured to Bar Q. He was amazed that he had not thought of it before. Human nature, he knew, was no different from cattle nature, where the young ones were concerned. The cattle mother would go, if necessary, through walls of fire and stone to reach her offspring, and what would keep Nettie Day from going to Bar Q, if she knew her baby was there? It was never necessary to throw the lariat upon the mother's neck; the roping of her child was always enough. Bull Langdon swung his car around. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Good-night, Nettie."
"Good-night, Angel. I think it's true. God is in our hearts. I believe it."
"I believe he's in yours, anyway," said Angella softly. "Good-night, old girl."
But God dwelt not in the heart of Bull Langdon. Under the silver light of the moon, that lay like a spell upon the sleeping land, and across the shining valley, came the cowman, driving a great herd of steers. [Pg 226] Penned in corrals for shipment to the Calgary stockyards, they had been without food for two days, and now they came down the hill, eager and impatient for the feed that had been too long denied them. ”

“ McDermott's fist came heavily down upon the table.
"Lad, ye're going to marry that girl, if I have to shove you by your neck to the parson."
A light flamed in the boy's face; his eyes widened as he stared incredulously at the doctor.
"I say," he said, all but weeping for joy, "that's a good joke on me. Is that what you're drivin' at, doc? Marry her! Say, I'd marry Nettie Day this blessed minute if she'd have me!"
"Very good, lad. You'll have your chance. I've got her now at Miss Loring's. I'll go myself after the missionary, if you'll lend me a horse. Trail's not fit for a car. ”