It was cold and damp as she knelt on the floor. No matter. He would be cold and chilled, too, and she had driven him from O Bar O!
A light gleamed now in the dusk over at the saddle rooms. A glance at her watch showed it was not yet six o’clock. He would make an early start, probably leaving before the men started off on the roundup—they were to leave for the range at seven that morning.
Without quite realizing what she was doing, Hilda dressed swiftly. The cold water on her tear-blistered face soothed and cooled it. She wrapped a cape about herself, put on a knitted tam.
The halls were dark, but she dared not turn on the electric lights, lest she should awaken Sandy or her father. Feeling her way along the wall, she found the stairs, and clinging to the bannister went quickly down. A moment to seek the door knob, and swing the big door open. At last she was out of the house.
The cold air smote and revived her. It gave her courage and strength.
The darkness was slowly lifting, and all over the sky the silvery waves of morning were now spreading. Hilda sped like a fawn across the barn yard, through the corrals and directly to the saddle room, from whence came the light. The upper part of the door was open, and Hilda pushed the lower part and stepped inside.
A man in white chaps was bending over a saddle to which he was attaching a lariat rope. As the lower door slammed shut behind Hilda, he started like an overtaken thief, and jumped around. Hilda saw his face. It was Holy Smoke.
All at once Hilda McPherson knew that before her stood the man who had tried to lariat her in the woods. She stared at him now in a sort of fascinated horror. A cunning look of surprised delight was creeping over the man’s face. Hilda put her hand behind her and backed for the door. At the same time, once again she raised her voice, and sent forth that loud cry of alarm:
“Hi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-iiiii-i-i-i-i!”
The cry was choked midway. She was held in a strangling hold, the big hand of the cowpuncher gripped upon her throat.
“There’ll be none of the Hi-yi-ing for you today! If you make another peep, I’ll choke you to death! I’m quittin’ O Bar O for good and all today, but before I go you and me has got an account to settle.”
She fought desperately, with all her splendid young strength, scratching, kicking, biting, beating with her fists like a wild thing at bay, and, with the first release as he staggered back, when her sharp teeth dug into his hands, again she raised her voice; but this time her cry was stopped by the brutal blow of the man’s fist. She clutched at the wall behind her. The earth seemed to rock and sway and for the first time in all her healthy young life, Hilda McPherson fainted.
She lay on a sheepskin, a man’s coat beneath her head. Chum Lee knelt beside her, cup in hand. She swallowed with difficulty, for her throat pained her and she still felt the grip of those terrible fingers. Hilda moaned and moved her head from side to side. The Chinaman said cheerfully:
“All lightee now, Miss Hilda. Chum Lee flix ’im fine. Slut ’im. Bang ’im. Slut ’im up till Mr. Cheerio come. Big fight!” Chum Lee’s eyes gleamed. “All same Holy Smoke bad man. Take ’im gun. Banfi! Sloot Mr. Cheerio. Velly good, now lide on lail.”
Hilda understood only that Holy Smoke had shot Cheerio.
She clutched the Chinaman’s arm, and forced herself to her feet. Pushing Chum Lee aside, Hilda made her way from the saddle shed, where they had laid her.
Outside, the sharp cold air of the Fall morning was like a dash of bitter water and brought its revivifying effect. Hilda turned in the direction of the voice she now heard clearly, for sound carries far in a country like Alberta, and although Hilda could clearly hear the voices of the men, they were in fact more than a mile from the ranch. She was obsessed with the idea that Cheerio had been killed and that her men had taken his murderer into the woods and were hanging him. Oh! she wanted a hand in that hanging. Everything primitive and wild in her nature surged now into being, as she made her way blindly down that incredibly long hill and ran stumblingly through the pasture lands to where the group of men were about some strange object that was tied and bound half sitting on a rail. Then Hilda understood, and waves of unholy joy swept over her in a flood. They were tarring and feathering Holy Smoke!
Above the deafening roar of the cheering shouting voices, presently rose the clear call of the one she knew. No fluttering, stammering tongue now. The voice of a captain, a leader among men:
“One, two, three! In she goes!”
The rail was swung back and forth, and at that “Three,” with a roar from twenty or thirty throats, it was released from the hands gripping it at either end and plunged into the muddy water of the shallow slough. It described a somersault. Head downward went the man they had tarred and feathered. The rail jerked over, and the head of Holy Smoke arose out of the water, a grotesque paste of mud and tar covering it completely. Loud shouts of glee arose from the men. They jeered and yelled to the struggling wretch in the water.
From the direction of the ranch, came the sound of the loud clanking breakfast bell of Chum Lee. In high good humour, with appetites whetted and vengeance satisfied, the men of O Bar O retraced their steps toward the ranch, prepared for that hearty breakfast which should stiffen them against
