It may be that Hilda sensed something of his judgment of her, for there was a pronounced lifting of that dangerous young chin and the free toss of the head so characteristic of her wild nature, while her dark eyes shone defiantly. Almost unconsciously, he found himself excusing her. She had been born to this life. Since her baby years she had been freely among cattle and horses and men. Daughter of a cattleman, Hilda knew that the most painful of the operations, namely, the dehorning, was, in a measure, a merciful thing for the cattle, who might otherwise gore each other to death. The vaccination was but a pin prick, an assurance against the deadly blackleg. As for the branding, it was not nearly as painful as was generally supposed, and first aid was immediately administered to relieve the pang of the burning. It was the only means the cattlemen had for the identification of their property. She resented, therefore, the horror and reproach which she sensed in the stern gaze of the Englishman. Her cool, level glance swept his white, accusing face.
“Pretty sight, isn’t it?” she taunted. “If there’s one thing I love,” she went on, defiantly, “it is to see a brand slapped on true!”
With a nonchalant wisp of a smile, her tossing head indicated the stake, to which a three-month-old calf was bound, its head upturned as the red-hot branding iron smote with a firm, quick shot upon its left side.
The odour of burnt hide nauseated Cheerio. He felt the blood deserting his face and lips. His knees and hands had a curiously numb sensation. He was dizzy and almost blind. He found himself holding to the gate rail, the critical, judging glance of the girl fixed in question upon his face.
Like one hypnotized, he forced his gaze toward the branded calf and he saw something then that brought his trembling hand out in a gesture of almost entreaty and pain. A long, red spurt of blood was trickling down the animal’s side. The old terror of blood swept over him in a surge—a terror that had bitten into his soul upon the field of battle. It was something constitutional, pathological, utterly beyond his control.
Cheerio no longer saw the girl beside him, nor felt the stab of her scornful smile. He had the impulse to cry out to her, to explain that which had been incomprehensible to his comrades in France.
Hilda’s voice seemed to come from very far away and the tumult that made up the bawling voices of Holy Smoke and the raging hands of the O Bar O was utterly unintelligible to him; nor could he comprehend that the shouts were directed at him. In a way, the shouting brought him stark back to another scene, when, in wrath, men seemed to rush over him and all in a black moment the world had spun around him in a nightmare that was all made up of blood—filthy, terrifying, human blood.
Ho’s bawling message was transmitted from bawling mouth to bawling mouth.
“Take the rope at the south stake, and take it damn quick. Are yer goin’ to let the bloody calf wait all the damn day for his brandin’?”
Above the tumult cut the girl’s quiet, incisive words:
“Get on your job! You’re wanted at the south stake.”
“My job? Oh, by Jove, what was it I was to do?”
His hand went vaguely across his eyes. He staggered a few paces across the corral.
“Hold the rope!” squealed Sandy, jumping up and down by the stake. “I gotter keep the fire goin’, and the other fellers has their hands full at the Squeezegate.”
“Hold the bally rope! Oh, yes. Wh-wh-where is the bally thing?”
“Here! Catch him! That’s Jake! There you go, round and round. Keep agoin’. Hold taut there! Don’t let go whatever you do. That calf’s awful strong. If you don’t look out she’ll get away!”
Sandy’s young wrists had been barely strong enough to hold the rope that bound the wretched calf to the stake. Pink Eye, wielding with skill a long lariat that never failed to land upon the horns of the desired calf and bring it to the stake, urged all hands along with profane and impure language. Automatically and with perfect precision, Hootmon was clapping the brand upon one calf after another and passing them along to the “Vet,” who in turn thrust the syringe into the thigh, the prick of the vaccination being dulled in comparison with the fiercer pang of the branding iron. Now the rope had passed from Sandy to Cheerio and there was a pause.
“Get a wiggle on you! Hold tight! Round this way! For the love of Saint Peter!”
At the other end of the rope that Sandy had thrust into his hands, a three-month-old calf pulled and fought for freedom. From its head, where the dehorning shears had already performed their work a dark sickening stream dripped. Sandy had twisted the rope partly around the post but it still remained unknotted.
Someone was calling something across the corral. Cheerio found himself going around and around the post. Suddenly a wild bawl of anguish from the tortured animal sent him staggering back and at the same moment the calf seemed to plunge against him and the hot blood spurted against his face.
At that moment he clearly heard again the crisp whipping words of his captain, scorching his soul with its bitter ring of hatred and scorn. The rope slipped from his hand. He threw up his arm blindly, shrinking back. His breath caught in the old craven sob. Down into deep depths of space he sank, sickened.
Hilda McPherson had leaped down from the rail and with an inarticulate cry, she gathered Cheerio’s head into her arms. It was the
