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diff --git a/old/63164-0.txt b/old/63164-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 524ca37..0000000 --- a/old/63164-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,8316 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook, Nameless River, by Vingie E. (Vingie Eve) Roe - - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - - -Title: Nameless River - - -Author: Vingie E. (Vingie Eve) Roe - - - -Release Date: September 9, 2020 [eBook #63164] -Most recently updated November 2, 2020 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NAMELESS RIVER*** - - -E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading -Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by -Internet Archive (https://archive.org) - - - -Note: Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive. See - https://archive.org/details/namelessriver00roev - - - - - -NAMELESS RIVER - -by - -VINGIE E. ROE - -Author of “Tharon of Lost Valley,” “Val of Paradise,” etc. - - - - - - -New York -Duffield and Company -1923 - -Copyright, 1923, by -The McCall Company - -Copyright, 1923, by -Duffield & Company - -Printed in U. S. A. - - - - - CONTENTS - - I. “Fight for a Woman? Hell! If ’twas th’ Horse, Now—” - II. The Homestead on Nameless - III. The Iron Hand of Sky Line - IV. The Mystery of Blue Stone Cañon - V. What Nance Found - VI. Shadows in the Sheriff’s Glass - VII. The Shadows Thicken - VIII. Brand Fair - IX. Golden Magic - X. The Seventh Sense - XI. The Ashes of Hope - XII. “Get-out-of-that-Door!” - XIII. “We’re Our Pappy’s Own—and we Belong on Nameless.” - XIV. Light on the Sheriff’s Shadows - XV. The Flange in Rainbow Cliff - XVI. The Ancient Miracle - XVII. The Face in the Package - XVIII. The Fighting Line at Last - XIX. Riders of Portent - XX. Conclusion - - - - - NAMELESS RIVER - - - - - CHAPTER I - - “FIGHT FOR A WOMAN? HELL! IF ’TWAS TH’ HORSE NOW—” - - -It was Springtime in the Deep Heart country. On the broad slopes, -the towering slants of the hills themselves, the conifers sang their -everlasting monotone, tuned by the little winds from the south. - -On the flaring fringes of their sweeping skirts where the streams -ran, maples trembled in the airy sun and cottonwoods shook their -thousand palms of silver. - -Great cañons cut the ridges, dark and mysterious, murmuring with -snow water, painted fantastically in the reds and browns and yellows -of their weathered stone. Pine trees grew here, and piñons, hemlock -and spruce, all the dark and sombre people of the forest, majestic -and aloof. - -But in the sweet valleys that ran like playful fingers all ways -among the hills, where lay tender grass of a laughing brightness, -flowers nodded thick in the drowsy meadows. It was a lonesome land, -set far from civilization, but beautiful withal, serene, silent, -wild with crag and peak and precipice. Deer browsed in its sheltered -places, a few timber wolves preyed on them, while here and there a -panther screamed to the stars at night. - -For many years a pair of golden eagles had reared their young on the -beetling escarpment that crowned Mystery Ridge. - -It was a rich land, too, for many cattle ran on its timbered slants -and grew sleek and fat for fall along the reaches of the river. - -On a day when all the world seemed basking in the tempered sun, a -horse and rider came down along the slopes heading toward the west. -On the broad background of this primeval setting they made a -striking picture, one to arrest the eye, for both were remarkable. -Of the two, perhaps the horse would first have caught the attention -of an observer, owing to its great stature and its shining -mouse-blue coat. - -Far off, also, the prideful grace of its carriage, the lightness, -the arrogance of its step, would have been noticeable. But as they -drew near, one looked instinctively to see what manner of rider -bestrode so splendid a fellow, and was not disappointed—for the -rider was a woman. - -She was a gallant woman, if one could so describe her, not large but -built with such nicety of line, of proportion, as best to show off -the spirit in her—and that was a thing which might not be described. -Under her sombrero, worn low on her brow and level, one got the -seeming of darkness shot with fire—the black eyes and bit of dusky -hair above cheeks brightly flushed. She rode at ease, her gauntleted -hands clasped on her pommel, her reins swinging. A blue flannel -shirt, gay with pearl buttons, lay open at the throat and bloused a -trifle above a broad leather belt, well worn and studded with nickel -spots. A divided skirt of dark leather, precisely fitted and deeply -fringed at the bottom, concealed the tops of high laced boots. All -her clothing betokened especial make, and very thorough wear. - -As the blue horse sidled expertly down the slope a loose stone -turned under his shod hoof, causing him to stumble ever so slightly, -though he caught himself instantly. - -As instantly the woman’s spurred heel struck his flank, her swift -tightening of the rein anticipated his resultant start. - -“Pick up your feet, you!” she said sharply, frowning. - -The stallion did pick up his feet, for he was intelligent, but he -shook his proud head, laid his ears back on his neck, and the sweat -started on his sensitive skin at the needless rake of the spur. The -great dark eyes in his grey-blue face shone for a time like fox-fire -in the dark, twin sparks beneath the light of his tossing silver -forelock. - -He choose his footing more carefully, though he was an artist in -hill climbing at all times, for the woman on his back was a hard -task-master. Caught as a colt in the high meadows of the Upper -Country beyond the Deep Heart hills, the horse had served her -faithfully for four of his seven years of life, and hated her -sullenly. There was mixed blood in his veins—wild, from the slim -white mother who had never felt a rope, patrician, gentle, -tractable, from the thoroughbred black father lost from a -horse-trader’s string eleven years back and sought for many bootless -moons because of his great value. - -Swayed by the instincts of these two strains the superb animal -obeyed this woman who was unquestionably his master, though -rebellion surged in him at every chastisement. - -The sun was at the zenith, marking the time of short shadows, -and its light fell in pale golden washes over the tapestried -green slopes. Tall flowers nodded on slim stalks in nook and -crevasse—frail columbine and flaming bleeding hearts—and mosses -crept in the damp places. - -For an hour the two came down along the breast of a ridge, dropping -slowly in a long diagonal, and presently came out on a bold shoulder -that jutted from the parent spine. Here, with the thinning trees -falling abruptly away, a magnificent view spread out below. For a -long time there had been in the rider’s ears a low and heavy murmur, -a ceaseless sound of power. Now its source was visible—the river -that wound between wide meadows spread like flaring flounces on -either side—broad, level, green stretches that looked rich as a -king’s lands, and were. - -The woman reined up her horse and sitting sidewise looked down with -moody eyes. A frown drew close the dark brows under the hat brim, -the full sensuous lips hardened into a tight line. - -Hatred flamed in her passionate face, for the smiling valley was -tenanted. At the far edge of the green floor across the river there -nestled against the hills that rose abruptly the small log buildings -of a homestead. There was a cabin, squarely built and neat, a -stable, a shed or two, and stout corrals, built after the fashion of -a stockade, their close-set upright saplings gleaming faintly in the -light. - -And on the green carpet a long brown line lay stretched from end to -end, straight as a plumb-line, attesting to the accuracy of the eye -that drew it. A team of big bay horses even now plodded along that -line, leaving behind them a tiny addition in the form of a flange of -new turned earth, the resistless effect of the conquering plow. - -The plow, hated of all those who follow the fringe of the -wilderness, savage, trapper, and cattleman. - -In the furrow behind walked the owner of the accurate eyes—deep, -wide, blue eyes they were, set beautifully apart under calm brows of -a golden bronze which matched exactly the thick lashes and the heavy -rope of hair braided and pinned around the head hidden in an -old-fashioned sunbonnet—for this only other figure in the primeval -picture was a woman also. She was young by the grace of the upright -carriage, strong by the way she handled her plow, confident in every -movement, every action. She stood almost as tall as the average man, -and she walked with the free swing of one. - -For a long time the rider on the high shoulder of the ridge sat -regarding these tiny plodders in the valley. - -Then she deliberately took from its straps the rifle that hung on -her saddle, lifted it to her shoulder, took slow aim and fired. It -was a high-power gun, capable of carrying much farther than this -point of aim, and its bullet spat whiningly into the earth so near -the moving team that one of the horses jumped and squatted. - -The woman lowered the gun and watched. - -But the upright figure plodding in its furrow never so much as -turned its head. It merely pulled the lines buckled about its waist, -thereby steadying the frightened horse back to its business, and -crept ahead at its plowing. - -“Damn!” said the woman. - -She laid the rifle across her pommel, reined the blue stallion -sharply away and went on her interrupted journey. - - * * * * * - -Two hours later she rode into the shady, crooked lane that passed -for a street in Cordova. Composed of a general store, a -blacksmith-shop, a few ancient cabins, the isolated trading point -called itself a town. McKane of the store did four-ply business and -fancied himself exceedingly. - -As the woman came cantering down the street between the cabins he -ceased whittling on the splinter in his hands and watched her. She -was well worth watching, too, for she was straight as an Indian and -she rode like one. Of the half-dozen men lounging on the store porch -in the drowsy afternoon, not one but gazed at her with covetous -eyes. - -A light grew up in McKane’s keen face, a satisfaction, an -appreciation, a recognition of excellence. - -“By George!” he said softly. “Boys, I don’t know which is the most -worth while—the half-breed Bluefire or Kate Cathrew on his back!” - -“I’ll take the woman,” said a lean youth in worn leather, his -starved young face attesting to the womanless wilderness of the -Upper County from whence he hailed. “Yea, Lord—I’ll take the woman.” - -“You mean you _would_,” said McKane, smiling, “if you could. Many a -man has tried it, but Kate rides alone. Yes, and rules her kingdom -with an iron hand—that’s wrong—it’s steel, and Toledo steel at that, -tempered fine. And merciless.” - -“You seem to know th’ lady pretty well.” - -“All Nameless River knows her,” said the trader, lowering his voice -as she drew near, “and the Deep Hearts, too, as far as cattle run.” - -“Take an’ keep yer woman—if ye can—” put in a bearded man of fifty -who sat against a post, this booted feet stretched along the floor, -“but give me th’ horse. I’ve loved him ever sence I first laid eyes -on him two years back. - -“He’s more than a horse—he’s got brains behind them speakin’ eyes, -soft an’ black when he’s peaceful, but burnin’ like coals when he’s -mad. I’ve seen him mad, an’ itched to own him then. Kate’s a brute -to him—don’t understand him, an’ don’t want to.” - -McKane dropped his chair forward and rose quickly to his feet as the -woman cantered up. - -“Hello, Kate,” he said, as she sat a moment regarding the group, -“how’s the world at Sky Line Ranch?” - -“All there,” she said shortly, “or was when I left.” - -She swung out of her saddle and flung her reins to the ground. She -pulled off her gloves and pushed the hat back from her forehead, -which showed sweated white above the tan of her face. She passed -into the store with McKane, the spurs rattling on her booted heels. - -Left alone the big, blue stallion turned his alert head and looked -at the men on the porch, drawing a deep breath and rolling the wheel -in his half-breed bit. - -It was as the bearded man had said—intelligence in a marked degree -looked out of the starry eyes in the blue face. That individual -reached out a covetous hand, but the horse did not move. He knew his -business too well as Kate Cathrew’s servant. - -Inside the store the woman took two letters which McKane gave her -from the dingy pigeonholes that did duty as post office, read them, -frowned and put them in the pocket of her leather riding skirt. Then -she selected a few things from the shelves which she stowed in a -flour-sack and was ready to go. McKane followed her close, his eyes -searching her face with ill-concealed desire. She did not notice the -men on the porch, who regarded her frankly, but passed out among -them as though they were not there. It was this cool insolence which -cleared the path before her wherever she appeared, as if all -observers, feeling the inferiority her disdain implied, acknowledged -it. - -But as she descended the five or six steps that led down from the -porch, she came face to face with a newcomer, one who neither gaped -nor shifted back, but looked her square in the face. - -This was a man of some thirty-four or five, big, brawny, lean and -fit, of a rather homely countenance lighted by grey eyes that read -his kind like print. - -He looked like a cattleman save for one thing—the silver star pinned -to the left breast of his flannel shirt, for this was Sheriff Price -Selwood. - -“Good day, Kate,” he said. - -A red flush rose in the woman’s face, but it was not set there by -any liking for the speaker who accosted her, that was plain. - -“It’s never a good day when I meet you,” she said evenly, “it’s a -bad one.” - -The Sheriff smiled. - -“That’s good,” he answered, “but some day I’ll make it better.” - -McKane, his own face flushed with sudden anger, stepped close. - -“Price,” he said thinly, “you and I’ve been pretty fair friends, but -when you talk to Miss Cathrew like that, you’ve got me to settle -with. That sounded like a threat.” - -“Did it?” said Selwood. “It was.” - -The trader was as good as his word. - -With the last syllable his fist shot out and took the speaker in the -jaw, a clean stroke, timed a half-second sooner than the other had -expected, though he _had_ expected it. It snapped his head back on -his shoulders, but did not make him stagger, and the next moment he -had met McKane half-way with all the force of his two hundred pounds -of bone and muscle. - -In the midst of the whirlwind fight that followed, Kate Cathrew, -having pulled on her gloves and coolly tied her sack in place on her -saddle, mounted Bluefire and rode away without a backward look. - - * * * * * - -Twenty minutes later the Sheriff picked up the trader and rolled him -up on the porch. He stood panting himself, one hand on the worn -planking, the other wiping the blood and dirt from his face. - -“Get some water, boys,” he said quietly, “and when he comes around -tell him I’ll be back tomorrow for my coffee and tobacco—five pounds -of each—and anything more he wants to give me.” - -He picked up his wide hat, brushed it with his torn sleeve, set it -back on his head precisely, walked to his own horse, which was tied -some distance away, mounted and rode south toward the more open -country where his own ranch lay. - -“I’m damned!” said the bearded man softly, “it didn’t take her long -to stir up somethin’ on a peaceful day! If it’d been over Bluefire, -now—there’s somethin’ to fight for—but a woman; Hell!” - -“But—Glory—Glory!” whispered the lean boy who had watched Kate -hungrily, “ain’t she worth it! Oh, just ain’t she! Wisht I was -McKane this minute!” - -“Druther be th’ Sheriff,” said the other enigmatically. - - - - - CHAPTER II - - THE HOMESTEAD ON NAMELESS - - -When the sun dropped over the western ridge, the girl in the deep -sunbonnet unhitched her horses from the plow. She looped her lines -on the hames, rubbed each sweated bay head a moment, carefully -cleaned her share with a small wooden paddle which she took from a -pocket in her calico skirt, and tipped the implement over, -share-face down. - -Then she untied the slatted bonnet and took it off, carrying it in -her hand as she swung away with her team at her heels, and the -change was marvelous. Where had been a somewhat masculine figure, -plodding at man’s work a few moments before, was now a young goddess -striding the virgin earth. - -The rose glow of coming twilight in the mountains bathed the stern -slants with magic, fell on her bronze head like ethereal dust of -gems. All in a moment she had become beautiful. The golden shade of -her smooth skin was put a tint above that of her hair and brows and -lashes, a blend to delight an artist, so rare was it—though her -mother said they were “all off the same piece.” There was red in her -makeup, too, faint, thinned, beneath the light tan of her cheeks, -flaming forth brightly in the even line of her full lips. - -Out of this flare of noon-day color her blue eyes shone like calm -waters under summer skies. Some of the men of the country had seen -John Allison’s daughter, but not one of them would have told you she -was handsome—for not one of them had seen her without the -disfiguring shelter of the bonnet. She went with the weary horses to -the edge of the river, flat here in the broad meadows, and stood -between them as they drank. - -She raised her head and looked across the swift water-stream to the -high shoulder of the distant ridge, but there was no fear in the -calm depths of her eyes. She stood so, quiet, tired, at ease, until -the horses had drunk their fill and with windy breaths of -satisfaction were ready to go on across the flat to the stable and -corral. - -Here she left them in the hands of a boy of seventeen, very much -after her own type, but who walked with a hopeless halt, and went on -to the cabin. - -“Hello, Mammy,” she said, smiling—and if she had been beautiful -before she was exquisite when she smiled, for the red lips curled up -at the corners and the blue eyes narrowed to drowsy slits of -sweetness. - -But there was no answering smile on the gaunt face of the big woman -who met her at the door with work-hardened hands laid anxiously on -her young shoulders. - -“Nance, girl,” she said straightly, “I heard a shot this afternoon—I -reckon it whistled some out there in th’ field?” - -“It did,” said Nance honestly, “so close it made Dan squat.” - -In spite of her courage the woman paled a bit. - -“My Lord A’mighty!” she said distressedly, “I do wish your Pappy had -stayed in Missouri! I make no doubt he’d been livin’ today—and I’d -not be eating my heart out with longin’ for him, sorrow over Bud, -an’ fear for you every time you’re out of my sight. And th’ land -ain’t worth it.” - -But Nance Allison laid her hand over her mother’s and turned in the -doorway to look once again at the red and purple veils of dusk-haze -falling down the mountain’s face, to listen to the song of Nameless -River, hurrying down from the mysterious cañons of the Deep Heart -hills, and a sort of adoring awe irradiated her features. - -“Worth it?” she repeated slowly. “No—not Papp’s death—not Bud’s -lameness—but worth every lick of work I ever can do, worth every -glorious hour I spend on it, worth every bluff I call, every -sneak-thief enemy I defy—and some day it will be worth a mint of -gold when the cattle grow to herds. And in the meantime it’s—why, -Mammy, it’s the anteroom of Heaven, the fringes of paradise, right -here in Nameless Valley.” - -The mother sighed. - -“You love it a lot, don’t you?” she asked plaintively. - -“I think it’s more than love,” said the big girl slowly as she -rolled her faded sleeves higher along her golden arms preparatory to -washing at the well in the yard, “I think it’s principle—a proving -of myself—I think it’s a front line in the battle of life—and I -believe I’m a mighty fighter.” - -“I know you are,” said the woman with conviction, faintly tinged -with pride, “but—there’ll be few cattle left for herds if things go -on the way they have gone. Perhaps there’ll be neither herds nor -herders——” - -But her daughter interrupted. - -“There’ll be a fight, at any rate,” she said as she plunged her -face, man fashion, into the basin filled with water from the bucket -which she had lifted, hand over hand—“there’ll be a fight to the -finish when I start—and some day I’m afraid I’ll start.” - -She looked at her mother with a shade of trouble on her frank face. - -“For two years,” she added, “I’ve been turning the other cheek to my -enemies. I haven’t passed that stage, yet. I’m still patient—but I -feel stirrings.” - -“God forbid!” said the older woman solemnly, “it sounds like feud!” - -“Will be,” returned the girl shortly, “though I pray against it -night and day.” - -The boy Bud came up from the stable along the path, and Nance stood -watching him. There was but one thing in Nameless Valley that could -harden her sweet mouth, could break up the habitual calm of her -eyes. This was her brother, Bud. - -When she regarded him, as she did now, there was always a flash of -flame in her face, a wimple of anguish passing on her features, an -explosion, as it were, of some deep and surging passion, covered in; -hidden, like molten lava in some half-dead crater, its dull surface -cracking here and there with seams of awful light which drew -together swiftly. Now for the moment the little play went on in her -face. - -Then she smiled, for he was near. - -“Hello, Kid,” she said, “how’s all?” - -The boy smiled back and he was like her as two peas are like each -other—the same golden skin, the same mouth, the same blue eyes -crinkling at the corners. - -But there the likeness ended, for where Nance was a delight to the -eye in her physical perfection, the boy hung lopsided, his left -shoulder drooping, his left leg grotesquely bandied. - -But the joy of life was in him as it was in Nance, despite his -misfortune. - -“Whew!” he said, “it’s gettin’ warm a-ready. Pretty near melted -working in th’ garden today. Got three beds ready. Earth works up -fine as sand.” - -“So it does in the field,” said Nance as she followed the mother -into the cabin, “it’s like mould and ashes and all the good things -of the land worked in together. It smells as fresh as they say the -sea winds smell. Each time I work it, it seems wilder and -sweeter—old lady earth sending out her alluring promise.” - -“Land sakes, girl,” said Mrs. Allison, “where do you get such -fancies!” - -“Where do you suppose?” said Nance, “out of the earth herself. She -tells me a-many things here on Nameless—such as the value of -patience, an’ how to be strong in adversity. I’ve never had the -schools, not since those long-back days in Missouri, but I’ve got my -Bible and I’ve got the land. And I’ve got the sky and the hills and -the river, too. If a body can’t learn from them he’s poor stuff -inside. Mighty poor.” - -She tidied her hair before the tiny mirror that hung on the kitchen -wall, a small matter of passing her hands over the shining mass, for -the braids were smooth, almost as they had been when she pinned them -there before sun-up, and rolling down her sleeves, sat down to the -table where a simple meal was steaming. She bowed her head and Mrs. -Allison, her lean face gaunt with shadows of fear and apprehension, -folded her hard hands and asked the customary blessing of that -humble house. - -Humble it was in every particular—of its scant furnishings, of its -bare cleanliness which was its only adornment, of the plain food on -the scoured, clothless table. - -These folk who lived in it were humble, too, if one judged only by -their toil-scarred hands, their weary faces. - -But under the plain exterior there was something which set them -apart, which defied the stamp of commonplace, which bid for the -extraordinary. - -This was the dominant presence of purpose in the two younger faces, -the spirit of patient courage which shone naked from the two pairs -of blue eyes. - -The mother had less of it. - -She was like a war-mother of old—waiting always with a set mouth and -eyes scanning the distances for tragedy. - -That living spirit of stubborn courage had come out of the heart and -soul of John Allison, latter day pioneer, who for two years had -slept in a low, neat bed at the mountain’s foot beyond the cabin, -his end one of the mysteries of the wild land he had loved. His wife -had never ceased to fret for its unravelling, to know the how and -wherefore of his fall down Rainbow Cliff—he, the mountaineer, the -sure, the unchancing. His daughter and son had accepted it, laid it -aside for the future to deal with, and taken up the work which he -had dropped—the plow, the rope and the cattle brand. - -It was heavy work for young hands, young brains. - -The great meadow on the other side of Nameless was rich in wild -grass, a priceless possession. For five years it had produced -abundant stacks to feed the cattle over, and the cutting and -stacking was work that taxed the two to the very limit of endurance. -And the corn-land at the west—that, too, took labor fit for man’s -muscles. But there were the hogs that ran wild and made such quick -fattening on the golden grain in the early fall. It was the hogs -that paid most of the year’s debt at the trading store, providing -the bare necessities of life, and Nance could not give up that -revenue, work or no work. Heaven knew, she needed them this year -more than ever—since the fire which had flared in a night the -previous harvest and taken all three of the stacks in the big -meadow. That had been disaster, indeed, for it had forced her to -sell every head of her stock that she could, at lowest prices, -leaving barely enough to get another start. McKane had bought, but -he had driven a hard bargain. - -This was another spring and hope stirred in her, as it is ever prone -to do in the heart of youth. - -Tired as she was, the girl brought forth from the ancient bureau in -her own room beyond, a worn old Bible, and placing it beneath the -lamp, sat herself down beside the table to the study of that Great -Book which was her classic and her school. Mrs. Allison had retired -into the depths of the cabin, from the small room adjoining, Nance -could hear the regular breathing of Bud, weary from his labors. For -a long time she sat still, her hands lying cupped around the Book, -her face pensive with weariness, her eyes fixed unwinking on the -yellow flame. Then she turned the thin pages with a reverent hand -and at the honeysweet rhythms of the Psalms, stopped and began to -read. - -With David she wandered afar into fields of divine asphodel, was -soon lost in a sea of spiritual praise and song. - -Her young head, haloed with a golden spray in the light of the lamp, -was bent above the Bible, her lashes lay like golden circles, -sparkling on her cheeks, her lips were sweetly moulded to the words -she unconsciously formed as she read. - -For a long time she pored over the ancient treasure of the -Scriptures, and in all truth she was innocent enough, lovely enough -to have stirred a heart of stone. It was warm with the breath of -spring outside. Window and door stood open and no breeze stirred the -cheap white curtain at the sill. - -Peace was there in the lone homestead by the river, the security -that comes with knowledge that all is looked to faithfully. Nance -knew that the two huge padlocks on the stout log barn that housed -the horses and the two milk cows, were duly fastened, for their keys -hung on the wall beside the towel-roller. She knew that the -well-board was down, that the box was filled with wood for the early -breakfast fire. - -“‘In Thee, Oh, Lord, do I put my trust,’” she read in silence. “‘Let -me never be ashamed, deliver me in Thy righteousness——’” - -She laid her temples in her palms, her elbows on the table, and her -blue eyes followed the printed lines with a rapt delight. - -Suddenly she sat upright, alert, her face lifted like that of a -startled creature of the wild. She had heard no sound. There had -been no tremor of the earth to betray a step outside, and yet she -felt a presence. - -She did not look toward the openings, but stared at the wall before -her with its rows of shelves behind their screened doors where her -mother kept her scoured pans. - -And then, suddenly, there came a thin, keen whine, a little clear -whistle, and a knife stood quivering between her dropped hands, its -point imbedded deep in the leaves of the old Bible. - -For a moment she sat so, while a flush of anger poured up along her -throat to flare to the roots of her banded hair. - -With no uncertain hand she jerked the blade from the profound pages, -leapt to her feet, snatched a stub of pencil from a broken mug on a -shelf, tore a fly-leaf from the precious Book, and, bending in the -light, wrote something on it. She folded the bit of paper, thrust -the knife point through it and, turning swiftly, flung them -viciously through the window where the thin curtain had been parted. - -She stood so, facing the window defiantly, scorning to blow out the -light. - -Then she dropped her eyes to the desecrated Word and they were -flaming—and this is what she had written on the fly-leaf: - -“The Lord is the strength of my life—of whom shall I be afraid? -Though a host shall encamp against me, my heart shall not fear.” - -Very deliberately she closed the door and window, turned locks on -both, picked up her lamp and Bible and went into her own room -beyond. Serene in the abiding faith of those divine words she soon -forgot the world and all it held of work and care, of veiled threat -and menace. - -At daybreak she opened the window and scanned the ground outside. -There was no thin-bladed knife in sight, no folded bit of paper with -its holy defiance. The whole thing might have been a dream. - - - - - CHAPTER III - - THE IRON HAND OF SKY LINE - - -Kate Cathrew—Cattle Kate Cathrew—lived like an eagle, on the crest -of the world looking down. She looked down along the steep slopes of -Mystery Ridge, dark with the everlasting green of conifers, speckled -with the lighter green of glade and brush patch, the weathered red -of outcropping stone—far down to the silver thread of Nameless River -flowing between its grass-clad banks, the fair spread of the valley -with its priceless feeding land. - -The buildings of Sky Line Ranch lay nestled at the foot of Rainbow -Cliff, compact, solid, like a fortress, reached only by cattle -trails, for there was no wagon road. There could have been none on -these forbidding steeps. The buildings themselves were built of -logs, but all that was within them had come into the lonesome -country on pack-mules, even to the big steel range in the kitchen. -The house itself was an amazing place, packed with all necessities, -beautiful with luxuries, its contents worth a fortune. It had many -rooms and a broad veranda circled it. Pine trees stood in ranks -about it, and out of the sheer face of Rainbow Cliff at the back a -six-inch stream of crystal water shot forth in a graceful arc from -the height of a man’s shoulder, to fall into a natural basin in the -solid rock by its own ceaseless action. - -And stretching out like widespread wings on either side this -majestic cliff ran crowning the ridge for seven miles, a splendid -escarpment, straight up-and-down, averaging two hundred feet from -its base in the slanting earth to the sharp line of its rimrock. - -Rainbow Cliff, grim guardian of the Upper Country and the Deep Heart -hills themselves, supposed to be impassable in all its length, dark -in the early day but gleaming afar with all the colors of the -spectrum when the sun dropped over toward the west at noon. It was -this gorgeous radiance, caused by the many shades of the weathered -stone, which had given the battlement its name. No man was ever -known to have scaled the cliff—save and except John Allison, found -dead at its foot two years back—for the giant spine was alike on -both sides. Men from the Upper Country had penetrated the Deep -Hearts to its northern base, but there they had stopped, to circle -its distant ends, void of the secrets they had hoped to wrest from -it. - -And Kate Cathrew lived under it, a strange, half-sybaritic woman, -running her cattle on the slopes of Mystery, riding after them like -any man, standing in at round-up, branding, beef-gathering, her keen -eyes missing nothing, her methods high-handed. Her riders obeyed her -lightest word, though they were mostly of a type that few men would -care to handle, hard-featured, close-lipped, sharp-eyed, hard riders -and hard drinkers, as all the world of the Deep Hearts knew. - -Once in a blue moon they went to Bement, the town that lay three -days’ ride to the north beyond the hills, and what they did there -was merely hinted at. They drank and played and took possession of -its four saloons, and when they finally reared out of it to go back -to their loneliness and work, the town came out of its temporary -retirement, breathing again. - -Yet Kate Cathrew handled these men and got good work out of them, -and she belonged to none of them. - -Not but what there were hot hearts in the outfit and hands that -itched for her, lips that wet themselves hungrily when she passed -close in her supreme indifference. - -But Rio Charley carried a bullet-scar in his right shoulder, and Big -Basford walked with a slight limp—yet they both stayed with her. - -“Sort of secret-society stuff,” said Price Selwood once, “Kate is -the Grand Vizier.” - -There was no other white woman at Sky Line. She would have none. -Minnie Pine, a stalwart young Pomo half-breed, and old Josefa, brown -as parchment and non-committal, carried on the housework under her -supervision, and no one else was needed. - -At noon of the day after Kate’s visit to the store at Cordova, she -sat in the big living-room at Sky Line looking over accounts. An -observer having seen her on the previous occasion, would hardly have -recognized her now. Gone were the broad hat, the pearl-buttoned -shirt, the fringed riding skirt and the boots. - -The black hair was piled high on her head, its smooth backward sweep -crinkled by the tight curl that would not be brushed out. There was -fragrance about her, and the dress she wore was of dark blue -flowered silk, its clever draping setting off her form to its best -advantage, which needed no advantage. Silk stockings smoothed -themselves lovingly over her slender ankles, and soft kid slippers, -all vanity of cut and make and sparkling buckle, clothed her feet in -beauty. - -She was either a fool or very brave, for she was the living spirit -of seduction. - -But the sombre eyes she turned up from her work to scan the rider -who came to her, his hat in his hands, were all business, -impersonal. - -“Well?” she said impatiently. - -The man was young, scarce more than a boy, of a devil-may-care type, -and he looked at her fearlessly. - -“Here’s something for you, Boss,” he said grinning, as he handed her -a soiled bit of paper. - -It was thin, yellowed with age, and it seemed to have been roughly -handled. - -The mistress of Sky Line spread it out before her on the top of the -dark wood desk. - - “The Lord is the strength of my life,” she read, “of - whom shall I be afraid? Though an host shall encamp - against me, my heart shall not fear.” - -It was unsigned and the characters, while hurriedly scrawled, were -made by bold strokes, as if a strong heart had, indeed, inspired -them, a strong hand penned them. - -With a full-mouthed oath Kate Cathrew crumpled the bit of paper in -her hand and flung it in the waste-basket against the wall. - -“How did you get that?” she demanded. - -“On the point of the knife you sent th’ girl,” he answered soberly, -“an’ right near the middle of my stomach.” - -For a considerable space of time the woman sat regarding him. “I -sent you to help in the breaking of morale,” she said coldly, “not -to bring me back defiance. Next time I’ll send a more trustworthy -man.” - -She nodded dismissal, and the youth went quickly, his face burning. - -At the far end of the veranda he almost ran into Big Basford, whose -huge, gorilla-like shape was made more sinister and repellant by the -perceptible limp. Basford was always somewhere near, if possible, -when men talked with Kate Cathrew. - -His great strength and stature, his small eyes, black and rimmed -with red, his unkempt head and flaring black beard, everything about -him suggested a savagery and power with which few men cared to -trifle. - -He scanned the boy’s flushed face with swift appraising. - -“I take it,” he said grinning, “that the boss wasn’t pleased with -you?” - -“Take it or leave it,” said the other with foolhardy daring, “is it -any of your business?” - -With a smothered roar Big Basford leaped for him, surprisingly -nimble on his lamed foot, surprisingly light. - -He caught him by the throat and bore him backward across the -veranda’s edge, so that both bodies fell heavily on the boards of -the floor. - -“You’ll find what’s my business, damn you,” gritted Big Basford; -“you——!” - -He got to his knees and straddling the lad’s body came down on his -throat with all his weight in his terrible grip. At the sound of the -fall Minnie Pine leaped to a window. - -“That black devil is killing the Blue Eyes,” she said in patois -Spanish to Josefa. “Give me that knife——” - -But there was no need of Minnie’s interference. - -Kate Cathrew had heard that heavy thunder of falling bodies on -boards and she was quicker than her half-breed, for she was up and -away from the desk before Big Basford had risen on his knees, and as -she rose her left hand swept down the wall, taking from its two pegs -the heavy quirt that always hung there. - -With the first jab of the boy’s head back on the floor, she was -running down the veranda, her arm raised high. With the second she -was between Big Basford and the light like a threat of doom. - -As he surged forward once more above the blackening face in his -throttling fingers, she flung her body back in a stiff arc to get -more impetus—and drove the braided lash forward and down like a -fury. - -It circled Big Basford’s head from the back, the bitter end snapping -across his face with indescribable force. - -It curled him away from his victim, tumbling back on his heels with -his murderous hands covering his cheeks. - -For a moment he hung on the veranda’s edge, balanced, then slipped -off, lurching on his lame foot. He held his hands over his face for -a tense moment. Then he looked up through his fingers, where the -blood was beginning to ooze, straight at the woman. - -The red-rimmed eyes were savage with rage and hurt, but behind both -was a flaming passion which seemed to swell and burgeon with a -perverted admiration. - -“I’ve told you before, Basford,” said Kate Cathrew, “that I will -deal with my men myself. I don’t need your overly zealous aid. Get -out of my sight—and stay out till you can heed what I say. Minnie, -take this fool away—pump some wind into him. Give him some whiskey.” - -She touched the boy contemptuously with the toe of her buckled -slipper. He was weakly trying to get up and the Pomo girl -unceremoniously finished the effort, lifting him almost bodily in -her arms and supporting him through the door into the kitchen. The -look she turned over her shoulder at Big Basford was venomous. - -The owner of Sky Line walked down the veranda to her living-room -door. At its lintel she stopped and stood, drawing the heavy quirt -through her fingers, looking back at Big Basford. He had watched her -progress and now the hard, bright, sparkling gaze of her dark eyes -seemed to force him to movement, so that he picked up his hat, set -it on his head and turned away toward the corrals at Rainbow’s foot, -swinging with a rolling gait that further made one think of jungle -folk. - -But the lips in the flaring beard were twitching. - -Kate Cathrew went in and hung the quirt on its smooth pegs, then sat -down and took up her interrupted work just where she had left it. - -“Three hundred head,” she said, “prime on hoof—at thirteen-fifty——” -and her pen began to travel evenly across the page before her. - - - - - CHAPTER IV - - THE MYSTERY OF BLUE STONE CAÑON - - -The spring sailed by like a full-rigged ship on a windy sea, bright -with sun, sweet with surging airs, a thing of swiftness and delight. - -On the rich flats of Nameless, Nance Allison tilled her soil and her -blue eyes caressed the land. She loved every sparkling ripple of the -whispering stream, every cloud-shadow on the austere slopes, each -jutting shoulder of ridge and spine. The homestead was a fetish with -her. It had been her Pappy’s dream of empire. It was hers. He had -stuck by and toiled, had secured his patent, made the good start. - -She asked nothing better than to carry on, to see it prosper and -endure. - -But strange disasters had befallen her, one after the other—first -and bitterest, the hidden rope stretched in a cattle trail two years -back, just after John Allison’s mysterious death, which sent young -Bud’s pony tumbling to the gulch below and left the boy to walk -lopsided ever after. - -At that the girl had almost weakened in her stubborn purpose. She -had held the young head in her arms many a weary hour when the pain -was worst, and tried to build a plan of a future away from Nameless -Valley, but Bud would not listen. The bare thought made him fret and -toss, sent the red blood burning in his cheeks. - -“We’ll never let ’em beat us out, Nance,” he would pant with his hot -breath, “the land is ours, safe and legal, and no bunch o’ -cut-throats is goin’ to get it from us. Not while we can stand—not -while we can ride or plow—or use a gun!” - -But Nance would stop him always there. - -“‘Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me,’” she would say gently, “we -have no need of guns, Bud.” - -However, as the seasons passed, each with its promise and its -inevitable blight, her face had became graver, less smiling. There -had been the hay fire then—the fire in the night where no fire was -or had been. There had been the six fat steers that disappeared from -the range and were never heard of, though Bud rode Buckskin to a -lather in a fruitless search for them. There had been the good -harness cut to pieces one night when Bud had forgotten to lock it -up. - -All these had been disasters in a real sense to these people living -so meagerly with their scant possessions. - -And this year they were more than poor, they were in debt to McKane -for the new harness that had to be bought to replace the other. But -Nance looked at her field of corn coming in long rows of tender -green on the brown floor of the well worked land and hoped. She was -prone to hope. It was part of her equipment for the battle of life, -her shield before the lance of her courage, her buckler of energy. - -“It looks like a heavy crop, McKane,” she told the trader honestly, -“and I’ll have far and away more than enough for you—I think I’ll -have enough left for my winter stake.” - -“Hope you do,” said McKane, for though he was none too scrupulous -where his own interests were concerned, he felt a vague admiration -for the game girl working her lonely homestead in her dead father’s -place. - -So, with the crop spreading its four delicate blades to the coaxing -sun and the hay knee-deep in the big fenced flat across the river, -Nance Allison laid by her labors for a while to rest her body and -refresh her soul. - -“I’ve just got to ride the hills, Mammy,” she said smiling, “got to -fish the holes in Blue Stone Cañon, to climb the slopes for a little -while. It will be my only chance, you know—there’s the hay to cut -soon and the corn to cultivate, and the cattle to look after later. -I can’t work all the year, Mammy, without a little play.” - -At which the mother’s tragic eyes filled with tears—this for her -daughter’s only play—the riding in the lonesome hills—the fishing -for trout in a shadowed cañon—when her young feet should have been -tripping to the lilt of fiddles—when she should have had ribbons and -muslin flounces, and a sweetheart—the things of youth ere her youth -should pass! Pass, toiling at the handles of a plow! It was a -poignant pain indeed, that brought those insistent tears, that -withheld the fear-urged protest. - -So, in the golden mornings, Nance began to saddle Buckskin and ride -away, a snack of bread and bacon tied behind the cantle, to come -ambling home at dusk happy, sweet, filled with the joy of life, -sometimes a string of speckled beauties dangling at her knee, -sometimes empty handed. - -Sometimes Bud went with her, but it was not fair to Dan and Molly, -the heavy team, to cheat them of their share of rest, since Bud must -ride one or the other of them, and so Nance rode for the most part -alone. - -She “lifted up her eyes to the hills” in all truth and drew from -them a very present strength. The dark, blue-green slopes of the -tumbling ridges, covered with a tapestry of finely picked out points -of pine and fir-trees, filled her with the joy of the nature lover, -the awed humility of the humble heart which considers the handiwork -of God. - -She lay for hours on some bleached log high in a sunny glade, her -hands under her fair head, her lips smiling unconsciously, her long -blue eyes dreaming into the cloud-flecked heavens, and sometimes she -wondered what the future held for her after the fashion of maids -since the world began. She recalled the restless wanderings of the -family in her early years, remembered vaguely the home and the -school in old Missouri, her father’s ceaseless urge for travel. And -then had come their journey’s end, here in the austere loneliness of -Nameless Valley, where his nomad heart had settled down and had been -at home. She thought of these familiar things, and of others not -familiar, such as picturing the house she and Bud would one day -build on the big meadow, with running water piped from the rushing -stream itself, with carpets—Mrs. Allison was already sewing -interminable balls of “rags” for the fabric—and with such simple -comforts as seemed to her nothing short of luxuries. She knew of a -woman in Bement who wove carpets, a Mrs. Porter, at the reasonable -price of thirty cents a yard, warp included. The warp should be -brown-and-white, she decided—at least she had so decided long back -after many conferences with her mother. - -Brown and white running softly through the dim colors of the -rags—nothing new enough to be bright went into the balls, though -there would be a soft golden glow all through the hit-and-miss -fabric from the “hanks” dyed with copperas—brown and white, Nance -thought, would make it seem like the floor of the woods in fall, -weathered and beautiful. - -She could scarcely wait the time of the fulfillment of this dress, -when the cabin floors should be soft under foot. - -Longing for the refinements was strong in her, though limited -painfully to such simple scope as Cordova supplied, or as she -remembered dimly from the days of her childhood in Missouri. - -But the glory of the land was too compelling for idle dreams of the -future. Here at hand were carpets of brown pine needles, shot -through with scarlet bleeding hearts. - -Here were mosses soft and wonderful when one bent close enough to -study their minute and intricate patterns. Here were vast distances -and dropping slopes, veiled in pale blue haze so delicate as to seem -an hallucination. - -Here also, were the mysterious fastnesses of Blue Stone Cañon, its -perpendicular walls of eroded rock cut by seam and fissure, its -hollow aisles resonant always of the murmurous stream that tumbled -through them. - -Nance loved the cañon. She liked to climb among its boulders, to -whip its frequent pools for the trout that hung in their moving -smoothness, to listen to the thousand voices that seemed always -whispering and talking. They were made of fairy stuff and madness, -these voices. If one sat still and listened long enough he could -swear that they were real, that strange concourses discussed the -secrets of the spheres. On the hottest days of summer the cañon was -cool, for a wind drew always through it from its unknown head -somewhere in the Deep Hearts themselves far to the north and east. -Buckskin felt the mysterious influence of the soundful silence, -pricking his ears, listening, holding his breath to let it out in -snorts, and Nance laughed at his uneasiness. - -“Buckskin,” she said one day, as she lay stretched at length on a -flat rock beside a boiling riffle, “you’re a bundle of nerves, a -natural-born finder of fears. There isn’t a thing bigger or uglier -than yourself in all the cañon—unless it’s a panther skulking up in -the branches, and he wouldn’t come near for a fortune—though what -could be fortune to a cougar, I wonder?” she went on to herself, -smiling at the strip of sky that topped the frowning rimrock, “only -a full belly, I guess—the murderer.” - -She lay a long time basking in the sun that shone straight down, for -it was noon, revelling in the relaxation of her young body, long -worked to the limit and frankly tired. - -She took her bread and bacon from a pocket and ate with the relish -which only healthy youth can muster, clearing up the last crumb, -drank from the stream, her face to the surface, and finally rose -with a long breath of satisfaction. - -“You can stay here, you old fraid-cat,” she said to the pony, -dropping his rein over his head, “it’s hard on your feet, anyway. -Me—I’m going on up a ways.” - -Buckskin looked anxiously after her, but stayed where he was bid, as -a well-trained horse should do, and the girl went on up the cañon, -her fair head bare, her hands on her hips. - -She drank in the sombre beauty of the dull blue walls, hung to their -towering rims with coruscation and prominence carved fantastically -by the erosion of uncounted years—listened, lips apart the better to -hear, to the deep blended monotone of the talking voices. - -She skirted great boulders fallen from above, waded a riffle here, -leaped a narrow there, and always the great cut became rougher, -wilder, more forbidding and mysterious. - -She stood for a long time beside a pool that lay, still-seeming and -dark, behind a huge rock, but in whose shadowed depths she could see -the swirling of white sand that marked its turmoil. - -The cañon widened here a bit, its floor strewn with jumbled -boulders, its walls honeycombed with water-eaten caves. - -When the snows melted in the high gulches of the Deep Hearts a -little later, this place would be a roaring race. She thought of its -foamy volume pouring from the cañon’s mouth to swell the flood of -the Nameless a bit below her southern boundary. But it was a lone -and lovely spot now, what with its peopled silence and its -blue-toned walls. - -These things were passing through her mind as she watched the -swirling sand, when all of a sudden, as if an invisible hand had -brushed her, she became alert in every fibre. - -She had heard nothing new in the murmurous monotone, seen no shadow -among the pale shadows about her, yet something had changed. Some -different element had intruded itself into the stark elements of the -place. - -Her skin rose in tiny prickles, she felt her muscles stiffen. She -had lived in the face of menace so long that she was super-sensitive -and had developed a seventh sense that was quick to the _nth_ -degree. - -She stood for a moment gathering her powers, then she whirled in her -tracks, sweeping the cañon’s width with eyes that missed nothing. - -They did not miss the movement which was almost too swift for -sight—the dropping of some dark object behind a rock, the passing of -a bit of plumy tail. - -The rock itself was between her and the broken foot of the wall, one -of a mass that had tumbled from the weathered face. For a long time -she stood very still, waiting, watching with unwinking eyes. Then, -at the rock’s edge, but farther away, she caught another glimpse of -that tail-tip. Its wearer was making for the wall-foot, keeping the -rock between. A wolf would do so—but there was something about that -bit of plume which did not spell wolf. It was tawny white, and it -was more loosely haired, not of the exact quality of a wolf’s brush. -Once more a tiny tip showed—and on a sudden daring impulse Nance -Allison leaped for the rock, caught its top with both hands and -peered over. - -With a snarl and a whirl the owner of the tail faced her in the low -mouth of a cave, his pointed ears flat to his head, his feet spread -wide apart, his back dropped, his jaws apart and ready, and round -his outstretched neck there stood up in quivering defiance, the -broad white ruff of a pure-bred Collie dog! - -The girl stared at him with open-mouthed amazement—and at the more -astonishing thing which lay along the pebbled earth beneath him—for -this was the thin little leg and foot of a small child. - -In utter silence and stillness she stood so, her hands on the rock’s -top, and for all the length of time that she watched there was not a -tremor of the little leg, nor a movement of the dog’s crouching -body. The only motion in the tense picture was the ripple of the -stream, the quiver of the lips drawn back from the gleaming fangs. - -When the tension became unbearable Nance spoke softly. - -“Come, boy,” she said, “come—boy—come.” - -She ventured a hand across the rock, but the quivering lips drew -back a trifle more, the big body crouched a bit lower—and the little -bare leg draw out of sight behind the edge of the cave. - -Carefully the girl slipped back from the rock toward the pool, -gained its lip, and dropped swiftly away down the cañon. - -At a little distance she drew a deep breath and looked back. - -The blue cañon lay still under the filtered rays of the noon sun, -empty, murmurous, enchanted. - -The mouth of the cave was black and vacant. - -There was no sign of fiery eyes and slavering jaws, of a thin little -leg under a fringe of blue jeans rags! - -With eyes dilated and lips closed in amazed silence Nance Allison -made her way back to Buckskin, mounted and returned to the flats of -Nameless. - -She had found Mystery with a capital, but she knew that she must -wait with patience its unravelling. - -Those pale eyes between the flat ears held a challenge which only a -fool would disregard—it would take time and patience. - -But, for the love of humanity, why was a child hiding like a fawn in -Blue Stone Cañon—with only a dog to guard it—and with no sign of -camp or people? - - - - - CHAPTER V - - WHAT NANCE FOUND - - -Nance pushed Buckskin hard and rode in early to the cabin and her -mother’s counsel. She put the little horse away in the stable and -fed him his quota of the precious hay, for Buckskin was not turned -out to graze. He, along with Dan and Mollie, was too necessary to -the life of the homestead to take chances with. - -They would miss him sorely should he go the way of the six steers. - -She hurried up and pulled open the kitchen door. - -“Mammy,” she said excitedly to the gaunt woman shelling peas by the -table, “I’ve found something in the cañon. I wonder—should I -meddle?” - -Mrs. Allison laid her wrinkled brown hands on the edge of the pan -and looked at her daughter. - -“It’s according,” she said soberly, “does it _need_ meddlin’?” - -“That’s what I don’t know. I found a Collie dog—a savage dog for -that breed—and a little child hiding in a cave. I couldn’t get near -to them, but they act like they know what they’re doing—they had -watched me from behind a rock and crawled to the cave in line with -it when I turned. I only saw the child’s foot—but it was a thin -little thing—and the old jeans pant-leg was weathered to rags. There -wasn’t a sign of camp—nothing. What _could_ it mean?” - -The anxiety of a universally loving heart was in Nance’s voice. “Did -I do right to come away—or should I have tried some more to see -them? It couldn’t be done, though—the dog is on guard. He’ll have to -be handled slowly, I’m sure of that.” - -Mrs. Allison considered this odd information gravely. - -“It means someone else besides the child and dog, that’s certain. -They never got there by their lone selves.” - -“But maybe they got lost from some one—and they may be hungry——” -the girl half rose at that thought, her brows gathering in -distress—“though whoever could be in Blue Stone Cañon, and what for, -I don’t know.” - -The older woman shook her head. - -“Not one chance in a thousand of that. No—someone else is there, -that’s sure. An’ I don’t believe I’d meddle.” - -But Nance rose determinedly. - -“I’ve got to, Mammy,” she said, “I’d never sleep another night if I -didn’t. Tomorrow I’ll go back bright and early.” - -The mother regarded her with troubled eyes. - -“Let Bud go, too—you never know—might be a trap or somethin’.” - -“With such bait? No. That little leg was so thin—like its owner was -wispy. I wish it was morning.” - -All the rest of the day and the tranquil evening Nance felt a thrill -and stir within her, a trouble. She milked old Whitefoot and her -sleek black daughter, Pearly, to the remembered sound of the fairy -voices of the cañon, and when she sat to her nightly reading of the -Word beneath the coal-oil lamp on the table there intruded on the -sacred page the gleaming fangs above that motionless small leg. - -With grey dawn she was up and about her work that she might get an -early start. Bud was all for going with her, but she would not have -it so. - -“I’ll have trouble enough getting near,” she told him, “the best I -can do. Another stranger would make them wilder still.” - -The boy caught her hand as she swung up on Buckskin. - -“Be careful, Sis,” he said, “look sharp on every side.” - -He had never forgotten that stretched rope. - -Neither had Nance, but she walked bravely in a faith which made her -serenely bold. - -“‘Commit thy way unto the Lord,’” she said smiling, “‘Trust also in -Him.’ Don’t you fret—nor let Mammy, if you can help it. I’ll be back -soon as I can.” - -Then she was gone down across the flats with Buckskin on the lope, -one hand feeling carefully for the package she had tied behind the -saddle. This contained a goodly piece of boiled corn beef and two -slices of her mother’s bread, fresh baked the day before. She was -going armed with bribery. - -The whole Nameless Valley between its great escarpments was fresh -and cool with shadow, for the sun was not yet above Mystery ridge -and the rimrock that marked the way to the cañon. - -The river itself talked to the boulders in its bed, and the little -winds that drew up the myriad defiles were sweet with the fragrance -of pines and that nameless scent of water which cannot be described. -All these things were the joy of life to Nance. - -She loved them with a passion whose force she did not comprehend. -They were what sweetened her hard and ceaseless toil, what made of -each new day in her monotonous round something to be met with eager -gladness, to be lived through joyfully, missing nothing of the -promise of dawn, the fulfillment of noon, the blessing of twilight. -They had stirred and delighted the nomad heart of her father before -her, they had filled her own with contentment. - -Eager as she was to be in the cañon she did not miss the pale -pageant of light above rimrock, or fail to watch the golden halo -come along the crest of Rainbow Cliff. - -But she soon crossed the river and entered the mouth of the great -cut, leaving behind the miracle of burgeoning day, for here the -shadows were still thick, like grey ghosts. She pushed on up for an -hour or so, listening to the voices which were still talking, while -the shadows thinned between the dusky walls. - -At the point where she had left the pony the day before she -dismounted and dropped his rein. - -“You wait here, old nuisance,” she said darkly, rubbing his restless -ears, “for I may have sudden need of you. If you see me come flying -out with a streak of tawny fur behind me, don’t you dare break when -I jump. So long.” - -She took the bread and meat from the saddle and started on foot. It -was not so far to the swirling pool and the cave behind the rock, -and long before the sunlight had crept half way down the ragged -stone wall at the western side of the cañon she had reached them. -She went carefully, picking her way, eyes scanning each turn and -boulder. At the pool’s edge she stood a long time, watching, -listening, but there was nothing to be seen or heard. - -She went to the mouth of the cave and peering in cautiously, called -softly. She waited, but there was no answering growl, no whirlwind -rush as she had half expected. The shallow cave was empty, save for -some ashes of a dead fire and blankets. She circled the rock and -began hunting for tracks in the white sand of the cañon bed—and -presently she found them—small tracks of childish feet, set close -beside the padded narrow prints of a dog—and they were going up the -cañon, deeper into its fastnesses. She trailed them easily for a -distance, then lost them in the foaming shallows of a riffle, and -search as she would she could not find where they came out. There -was a flat lip of rock on the other side, to be sure, but beyond -that was sand again, and it lay clear, unruffled. Above the riffle -was a long deep pool, swift and flowing, and she stood for a time -contemplating it. - -It hardly seemed possible that the two outcasts could have swum it, -and yet—where were their tracks if they had not? - -She circled the pool and went on, trailing carefully, but the bed -beyond was composed of shale, blue and sharp—hard going for a -child’s bare feet, she thought compassionately—and gave no sign of a -crossing. For another hour she went on, scanning the walls, the -fallen stones, the stream itself and every nook or corner where -anything might hide. She was far in Blue Stone Cañon by this time -and wondered at the endurance which could have brought a child so -far. Or had some one come and taken it away? That was possible, of -course, and yet—a grown up person would have left marks in the soft -sand assuredly. She would—but at this point in her train of thought, -she came around a sharp jut in the wall—and face to face with her -quarry, or at least with part of it. - -Startled, the dog she had seen the day before was crouched in the -narrow way that led around the jut, his body half turned, one foot -raised, tail lowered, and the face he turned back across his -shoulder was the most vicious thing Nance had ever seen. He was -crouched to spring, and the fury of his snarls, audible above the -sound of the stream, made that odd clutch close her throat which -always accompanies sudden horror. - -Nance Allison was a brave woman, but she was scared then. - -She stood rooted to the spot and could not tear her eyes from the -dog’s pale flaming orbs to look at the little creature which she -knew was running with a flurry of rags and naked arms up along the -cañon wall. - -For a long moment they eyed each other, then, without other warning -than a flicker of those flaming eyes, the Collie sprang. - -He came high, sailing up and forward, his forepaws spread, his head -thrust out and downward, his jaws gaping. - -In the second that followed instinct acted in Nance, not reason. -Instead of recoiling, she surged forward to meet the onslaught, her -right arm raised before her like a horizontal bar. - -The faded denim sleeve was down and buttoned at the wrist, where the -gauntlet of her cheap leather glove made a cuff. - -Into that gaping mouth went the arm, jamming hard, while she flung -her left arm around the ruffed white throat like a clamp. - -If she was surprised at her own instinctive and prompt action, the -Collie was more so. Down on the sand went girl and dog, a rolling, -tumbling bundle. In the half second which served to make the dog the -victim instead of the attacking force, his outlook on the situation -was completely changed. He had charged in a fury of rage. Now he -fought frantically, but it was to free his mouth from the choking -bar that filled it, to get his head out of the vice which held it. -But Nance found herself in a dilemma, too. She was afraid to let go. -As she rolled over in the struggle she cast desperate eyes up along -the wall where she had seen the eerie small figure running in its -rags. True enough, it was there, stopped, facing her, bent forward, -its little hands clasped in a curiously old fashion of distress. - -“Little boy!” she called, “come here! Come and talk to your dog—come -quick! I won’t hurt you. Come and call him—please come!” - -For a moment she lay panting, looking into the dilated eyes so near -her face. - -“Old chap,” she said softly, “what’s all the fuss? I’m your friend -if you only knew it. Nice doggie——” - -She glanced at the child again, who had not moved. - -“Come on, sonny,” she called coaxingly, “come on—please.” - -Slowly the child came forward, hesitant, afraid, his small face pale -with fright. - -He sidled near and put out a dirty hand to the dog’s right ear. The -little hand closed—pulled—and Nance felt the dog’s body twitch in an -effort to obey. She knew at once that that was the way they -travelled together—the child holding to his ear. Slowly she relaxed -her grip, let go the backward pressure. The Collie jerked free and -backed off shaking his head, and Nance sat up, folding her feet -beneath her. - -Then she smiled at the two waifs of Blue Stone Cañon. - -“That isn’t a nice way to treat folks who come to see you, is it, -sonny?” she asked, “to set your dog on them?” - -“I didn’t set him on,” said the child in a high treble, “he set -himself on you.” - -“I guess you’re right,” answered the girl, “but don’t let go of him -again. Go over there and pick up that package and bring it to me.” - -She pointed to the package of bread and meat which had been flung -wide in the recent trouble, and the child obeyed, dragging the -Collie along, who went unwillingly, his distrustful and baffled eyes -turned back across his shoulder to keep her in sight. - -The child, too, was wary, reaching far out, stretching his small -body to the utmost between her hand and his hold on the dog’s ear. - -Quickly Nance unrolled the cloth. She counted on the aroma which now -arose on the clear air. - -“I’m hungry,” she said nonchalantly, “are you?” - -The boy nodded. - -“And your dog, too?” - -“I ’spect so,” he answered gravely. - -She broke the food into sections and handed a portion over. - -The dirty little hand reached eagerly this time. - -“Feed him some,” she said, indicating the dog, but already the child -was dividing as best he could without releasing his hold. - -The dog grabbed the fragrant meat and bolted it, watching her the -while. Quickly she tossed him a bit of her own. He snapped that up -also and she fancied the expression of the pale eyes changed. She -remembered now the extraordinary lightness of the great furry body, -as if there was little beneath the splendid tawny coat save bones -and spirit. Plenty of the latter, she reflected, smiling. Whew! but -wasn’t he a fighter? But trained to the last degree—though he -regarded her as a foe, still at the touch of the small hand for -which he had fought he stood obedient. Pretending to eat herself, -she managed to give the greater part of the food to the two before -her, and they devoured it to the ultimate crumb. - -“Where you live?” she asked the child at last off-handedly, but he -did not answer. He was picking the crumbs he had dropped from the -front of his bleached blue shirt—the pitiful excuse for a shirt, -without sleeves, if one excepted the strings that hung from the -shoulders, without buttons and all but falling from the scrawny -little body underneath. As she watched him Nance’s heart ached for -his poverty, for his woe-begone appearance. She was filled with a -cautious excitement. The Collie had sat down beside the boy, who had -loosed his hold by now. It seemed that hostilities were relaxed, -though she took no chances. - -“_I_ live down on the flats by the river,” she said presently. “I -get lots of fish from these pools. They’re awfully good, too.” - -The child nodded. - -“I know,” he said, “we do, too.” - -“Who catches ’em?” asked Nance. “Not you?” - -He shook his head. - -“No. Brand does.” - -“Who’s Brand?” she followed quickly, but once more the child shook -his unkempt head. - -“Just Brand,” he said. - -Nance saw that further questioning would not do, therefore, she fell -back on the wiles of woman, the blandishments of sex. - -She rocked on her heels, holding her ankles in her hands and smiled -with the winsome sweetness which so few in the world knew she -possessed. - -“I like little boys,” she said, “and I haven’t any. But I’ve got a -pony. Name’s Buckskin.” - -“Brand’s got one, too,” said the child, “only Diamond ain’t a -pony—he’s a horse. He’s a big horse. Brand has got to swing me -pretty high to get me up. When we ride——” - -But again some inner warning stopped him, some stern habit closed -his mouth. - -Nance held out a hand. - -“If you’ll come sit in my lap a little while,” she coaxed, “I’ll -tell you all about the place where I live. Will you?” - -The little fellow twisted in shy indecision. - -“Don’t like me??” Nance asked aggrievedly. “I like you——” She smiled -again and reached the hand a little nearer. - -Diffidently the child took it—edged up—hesitated. - -She was wise enough to not insist, even to relax her pull a bit. - -True to the law of the contrary which rules the world of childhood, -he sidled closer—leaned against her shoulder—and the girl gently -folded him in her arms. - -At the feel of the thin little body, all bones and skin under the -dilapidated garments, the protective thrill of potential motherhood -went through her and tears swam suddenly in her eyes. - -A neglected pair, or one smitten by dire poverty, she thought -pitifully—this lone little chap hiding among the rocks and guarded -so well by the skeleton dog. The dog, by the way, had risen -belligerently to his feet at the child’s advance, and his eyes were -gleaming again at this unlooked-for familiarity with a total -stranger. - -“Call him, sonny,” she said, and the child obeyed. - -And so it was that after a while Blue Stone Cañon saw the miracle of -friendship grow like a magic flower in its pale light, for the girl -talked low and sweetly to the child in her lap—and strangest of all, -the savage Collie sat gravely on his plumy tail beside the two, -accepting the turn of fate. - -When Nance made ready to go away at noon she knew that Brand was -coming at night, that these two had always ridden on Diamond, and -that they would ride again some day, while Dirk, the Collie, would -run beside them. She knew that Brand was always gone in daylight, -and that the cave by the rock below was home. - -But that was all she did know, or could find out, except that the -child’s name was Sonny and that he was seven. - -Perhaps it was due to the fact that she had inadvertently called him -that, that she owed the success of the hour. - -Be that as it may, the yearning pity which she felt made Nance use -the last and greatest of feminine wiles to win him to her. - -“I’m going away now,” she said smiling into the grave brown eyes in -the little face, “but if you’ll kiss me—and won’t tell Brand a thing -about me, I’ll come again tomorrow—and I’ll bring you some more -goodies. How about it?” - -The promise, the kiss—these completed the downfall of the lonely -waif, and Nance’s heart ached anew at the pathetic grip of the -weazened arms about her neck. - -From the far bend she looked back—and this time it was to see the -two strange denizens of Blue Stone Cañon watching her in the -habitual repression and silence of their unnatural lives, but withal -so hungrily that the mist swam in her eyes again. - -“What’d you find, Nance?” Bud queried when she rode in at home. - -“I found a mystery I’m going to unravel,” she answered grimly, “or -my name’s not Nance Allison—and I made love to a half-starved little -kid—and got all chewed up by a dog—and I heard of a man who’s going -to get a piece of my mind some day—now, mark me!” - -“Land sake!” said Mrs. Allison in the doorway, “what are -they—campers?” - -“No—and it looks mighty mysterious to me, Mammy. As soon’s Bud puts -Buckskin away I’ll tell you all about it.” - - - - - CHAPTER VI - - SHADOWS IN THE SHERIFF’S GLASS - - -The sheriff went back to the store at Cordova and looked the -proprietor in the eye. - -“McKane,” he said, “is there anything you want to say to me?” - -McKane looked at him sullenly. - -“Don’t know’s there is,” he answered frankly, “you’re able to answer -it if I have, I find. I didn’t wake up for two hours after you left -that day.” - -“I’m sorry,” said Price Selwood earnestly, “but you know you run -against my fist yourself. I’d never mess up with a friend if I -didn’t have to. You’d ought to know me well enough to know that.” - -“I guess I do—but that damned sneering threat of yours, Price—it -just set me to seeing red. You don’t seem to know a woman from a -man, somehow.” - -There was a petulant complaint in his voice. - -“Not when the woman’s Kate Cathrew,” said the sheriff grimly, “I -don’t.” - -“You’re a good sheriff, Price, and a good man, but you’re stupid as -hell sometimes. To hold Miss Cathrew under your two-bit magnifying -glass of suspicion as you do is drivelling twiddle—silly child’s -play. True, she lives an out-of-the-ordinary life——” - -“I’ll say she does,” interrupted Selwood, “by what power does she -hold together the worst set of off-scourings this country ever saw? -Why do they obey her lightest word, step lively when she speaks in -that high-and-mighty tone of hers? Tell me that. It ain’t -natural—not by a long shot. And here’s another thing—a good -two-thirds of them ain’t cattlemen. Never were. I know that every -new one, as he has come in from time to time during these past three -or four years, has had to be taught the cattle business. Caldwell, -her foreman, is a cowhand—he came from Texas—and so is that long -black devil they call Sud Provine, and one or two others, but the -rest are city products, or I’m a liar—and why does she want that -kind? And she keeps a heavy force for the amount of cattle she -runs.” - -McKane spread his hands in eloquent resignation. “You two-bit -officers!” he said. “You make me sick.” - -“Make you sick because you’re already sick for Kate Cathrew—who -wouldn’t wipe her boots on you, and you know it.” - -“Sure, I know it. But that don’t prevent me taking up for a woman, -anywhere, any time.” - -Uncertain of morals and dealings as the trader was, there was a -simple dignity in his words which demanded respect, and they struck -Selwood so. - -“I’m sorry I can’t see Cattle Kate in the proper light, McKane,” he -said, “and that we’ve come to words and blows over her. Maybe I lack -something fine which you possess—but she’s under my glass, all -right, and I’m as sure as I stand here that some day its rays will -show her up.” - -“As what?” - -“I’m not saying.” - -“Men have died in their boots for less than that.” - -“True—but I won’t.” - -“Maybe not.” - -“Look here, McKane—don’t mess into Kate Cathrew’s affairs. I’m -giving you my hunch that the man who does is due for tragedy sooner -or later—and you have no reason, for Kate don’t care for you.” - -“No—nor for any other man.” - -“Wrong,” said the sheriff succinctly. - -“Eh?” - -“Don’t forget the man who comes in once a year—and he’s due before -so very long again—the man who sends her that regular letter from -New York and who comes across the continent to see her?” - -“Mr. Lawrence Arnold? Why, he’s her business partner—owns a full -half-interest in Sky Line.” - -“Well? You watch Kate’s face when you see them together again this -summer.” - -“Hell!” said McKane again in that resigned voice, “how’d you ever -get elected with those reasoning powers of yours?” - -“Oh—all right. But stay clear of Cattle Kate’s fringes—for some day -there’s going to be the prettiest blow-up ever seen in the cattle -country of the Deep Heart Hills—and Kate’s going mile high on the -explosion.” - -“If you’re so damned bright as a sheriff why don’t you busy yourself -with trying to find out who stole that last bunch of steers from -Conlan a month ago? The old man’s half crazy with the loss. Yes—and -that ninety head from Bossick—and the ones run off Jermyn’s range -last year? It looks like there’s plenty he-man stuff around Nameless -to interest your keen powers of perception without picking on a -woman.” - -The sheriff was tying his sack of purchases on behind his saddle and -didn’t look round. - -“I’ll never find those cattle, McKane—nor will anyone else—this side -of cow-heaven,” he said as he mounted, “but they, and their manner -of disappearance, along with a few other things are all under that -magnifying glass of mine. I think their ghosts will be in at that -blow-up.” - -“That’s rustler talk, Price,” said the trader shortly. - -“Sure,” returned Selwood as he rode away. - -That talk set going in the sheriff’s mind a train of thought which -was recurrent with him, which was forever travelling with him -somewhere in his consciousness. Sometimes one thing set it going, -sometimes another. In the two years already passed of his term of -office it had been a matter of deep annoyance to him that he had not -been able to put his hands on the mysterious rustlers who from time -to time got away with stock up and down Nameless River. - -This unseen, baleful agency was baffling as smoke. - -It struck here—and there—with a decisive clean stroke like the head -of a killing hawk, and there was nothing to show the how and -wherefore. Cattle disappeared from the range with a smooth magic -which was maddening. They left no trace, nothing. It seemed -ridiculous that ninety head of steers could be driven out of the -country leaving no trail, but such had been the case. - -Selwood himself, with a picked posse, had trailed them into the -river, and there they must have taken to themselves wings, for they -had apparently never come out. To be sure Kate Cathrew was driving -out her fall beef at the time, and the trampling band had crossed -the river a bit below where the ninety head had entered the stream. -That trampled crossing was the only spot for miles each way where a -cattle-brute could have left the water, for Selwood searched every -foot with eagle eyes. The coincidence of time stayed with the -sheriff doggedly, even though the Cathrew cattle, honestly branded, -went boldly through Cordova and down the Strip, as the narrow valley -beside Nameless was called, and thence out to the railroad, three -long days’ drive away. - -And the smaller thefts—old man Conlan’s bunch, and those of -Jermyn—all lifted light as a feather. These had left not even a -hoof-mark. It was smooth stuff—and it galled the sheriff, was a -secret source of humiliation. He had heard a good many remarks about -his own inaction, though nearly all of the ranchers in the country -were his friends. - -But deep inside himself he laid a spiritual finger on the handsome, -frowning-eyed woman at Sky Line and held it there. - -Sooner or later, he told himself, as he had told McKane, the steady -rays of his searching glass would reveal in her the thing he knew -was there. - -This was not logic, it was instinct—a poor thing for a sheriff to -base his actions on, apparently, but Price Selwood based his thereon -in unwavering confidence. - -And if he could have looked into the living-room at Sky Line that -day he would have jotted in his mental note-book as correct, one -premise—for the mistress sat again at her dark wood desk and read a -letter, and her face was well worth watching. - -The letter bore a New York postmark, and its terms were sharp and -decisive, almost legal, leaving no doubt of their meaning. - -Thus they carried to her consciousness a clear presentment of -satisfaction concerning the last shipment of cattle, and just as -clear an avowal of affection. - -Kate Cathrew’s sharp face was suffused with a light not meant for -any eyes at Sky Line as she read and reread the sheets in her hands. - -At their concluding words—“and so think I shall be with you at the -usual time”—her lips parted over her teeth in a slow smile which was -the visible embodiment of passion, while her dark eyes became for a -moment slumbrous with the same surging force. - -There _was_ a man this woman loved, if ever a face spoke truth, and -he was the writer of the letter. - -Though the scattered denizens of the outside world of Nameless knew -nothing of this, it was covertly known at Sky Line. - -Every one of the hard-eyed band of riders knew it, with varying -feelings, Minnie Pine knew it and old Josefa. Big Basford knew it -and his red-rimmed eyes glowed with the light of murder when he -watched Kate sit on the veranda with Lawrence Arnold in the long -summer days while the light drowsed down from the high blue vault -and Rainbow Cliff sent down its prismatic colors shining afar over -the slopes of Mystery. There was a look in the woman’s dusky eyes -that was plain as print—the hot, unsmiling, inflammable look of -untempered passion. - -Now she folded the letter, slipped it back in its envelope and put -it away in a drawer of the desk which she locked securely with a key -on a ring that she took from a pocket in her neat outing skirt. The -act was indicative of Kate Cathrew’s mode of life in her high -domain. All things were ordered, filed and locked, so to speak, and -she alone was the master. - -A little later she went out on the broad veranda and sat down in the -deep willow chair which rocked there, stirred fantastically by the -stiff breeze which swept in across the great blue gulf of space -between the peaks. Her eyes dropped down and down the wooded slopes -of Mystery slanting beneath her to the long green flats on Nameless, -the equally long brown spaces of Nance Allison’s tilled field. Sight -of that field was a barb in her consciousness. It never failed to -stir her to slow and resurgent anger. It was an affront to her -arrogant autocracy, a challenge and a taunt. - -She who hewed to her mark with such brilliant finesse, who had not -so far failed to get what she wanted from life, had failed to get -those flats—the best feeding ground for cattle in a hundred miles of -range. - -Cattle Kate Cathrew frowned as she regarded the tiny brown scar on -the green bowl so far below and tapped her slim muscular fingers on -the peeled arm of the hand-made rocker. - -For half an hour she sat so, her chin on her hand, thinking. - -Then at last she straightened and called Minnie Pine from the inner -regions. - -“Send me Caldwell,” she said briefly. - -When presently the foreman came from the corrals and stood before -her, his hat in his hand, his attitude one of strict attention, she -spoke swiftly with a certain satisfaction. - -When she had finished, he said, “Sure. It’s a pretty long trick, but -it can be done.” - -“Then do it,” said Kate Cathrew, “when I give the word. We’ll wait a -little, however—until the corn shows green from here. The better it -looks one day the greater will be the contrast next. That’s all.” - -“The devils are working in the Boss’s head again,” said Minnie Pine, -who had listened behind the window, speaking to old Josefa in their -polyglot Spanish and Pomo, “and hell’s going to pop for the -sun-woman on Nameless.” - -“How do you know?” asked the ancient dame, weaving a basket in dim -green grasses. - -“Because I heard what she said to Caldwell.” - -“You hear too much. An overloaded basket—breaks.” - -“Huh,” grunted the half-breed, “the open eye sees game—for its -owner’s fattening.” - -“What are you two talkin’ about?” asked the slim boy whom Big Baston -had so nearly murdered that day on the porch, “always talkin’ in -that damned native tongue. Why don’t you learn white man’s talk, -Minnie?” - -The girl wheeled to him where he leaned in the kitchen door, and her -comely dark face flushed with pleasure. - -“Would you like me any better?” - -“Sure,” he said, “make you seem a little whiter anyway.” - -There was cruelty in the careless speech, and it did not miss its -mark, though Minnie Pine’s dark eyes gave no sign. - -“The young-green-tree-with-the-rising-sun-behind it may want to talk -the white man’s tongue,” said old Josefa grimly, “but she’s a fool. -All half-breeds are. They reap sorrow.” - -The boy laughed and his face came the nearest to wholesome youth of -any at Sky Line. It still held something of softness, of humorous -tolerance and good temper, as if not all its heritage of good intent -had been warped away to wickedness. - -His blue eyes regarded the big girl with approval, passing over her -sleek black hair that shone like a crow’s wing, her placid brow and -unwavering dark eyes, her high cheeks and repressed thin lips. - -“I’ll give you a kiss, Minnie,” he drawled, “for half that cream pie -yonder.” - -Minnie looked at the pie and at Josefa, speaking swiftly. - -The old woman nodded. - -“If the mountain-stream wants to waste itself on the greedy sands,” -she said, “who am I to counsel otherwise? Yonder is the pie.” - -Minnie crossed the clean white floor and taking the pie from the -window ledge where it sat cooling, divided it neatly. She fixed the -two quarters on a plate from the cupboard and adding a fork, carried -the whole to the boy. - -She was the embodiment of the spirit of womanhood since the world -was—selling her service to man for love. - -“Take it, Rod Stone,” she said. - -It was indicative of her race that she did not exact her payment -first. It was sufficient that she serve. If the white man chose to -pay, to keep his word, so much the better. - -Stone took the plate and put one arm about the splendid broad -shoulders. - -Bending down he kissed the half-breed full on the lips—and for a -second the black eyes glowed. Minnie Pine put a hand on his cheek -with a caress infinitely soft. - -“Humph,” said Josefa, in English this time and pointedly, “I, too, -have stood in the bend of a man’s arm—but mine was a full-blood -pomo. I did not live to cover my head and weep.” - -“Shut up, Josefa,” said the boy laughing again, “neither will -Minnie, through me.” - -At that moment the door to the south part of the house opened -noiselessly, and Kate Cathrew stood there scanning the group with -her keen glance. - -“Stone,” she said coldly, “is this the best you can do to earn your -wages? Get out with the men—go quick. Minnie, if I see any more of -this you’ll go back where I got you. Josefa, what’s the matter with -your rule out here? Do you let all the morning be wasted without -care?” - -Josefa gazed at her out of old eyes, calm with much looking on life, -undisturbed. - -“Not always,” she answered, “but I, too, have been young. Minnie -will work better for the kiss.” - -“Well,” said Kate, “you’d better see that she does.” - - - - - CHAPTER VII - - THE SHADOWS THICKEN - - -Old man Conlan was, as McKane had said, half crazy with the loss of -his cattle. They were not so many, only a matter of some twenty-two -head, but they meant a lot to him. He owned no patented land. He was -merely a squatter in the lower fringes of the Upper Country around -at the western end of Mystery Ridge where Rainbow Cliff stopped -spectacularly. He lived with his wife in a disreputable old cabin -and worked beyond his years and strength in the white fire of an -ambition—a laudable ambition, for he had a crippled son back East in -college. He ran cattle in the hills and he knew every head of his -brand to the last wobbly calf, an easy matter, since they were few. - -At the store in Cordova he told his woes to the countryside, and he -had an attentive audience, for his issue was theirs, and in a -broader way. - -On a pleasant day in late June, the old man reiterated his -grievance, pulling his long grey beard and flailing his gaunt arms -in eloquent gesture. - -“Whoever they be that lifted my steers,” he said grimly, “I damn -their souls to hell! I’d damn their bodies, too, believe me, men, if -I knowed ’em an’ could throw my gun on ’em. Shuriff, here, might -take me to jail next minute an’ I’d go happy.” - -Selwood, sitting at a table desultorily playing cards, pushed back -his hat and smiled. - -“Nobody’s going to take you to jail for killing a rustler, Jake,” he -said, “we’d give you a reward instead. I’d give a lot to have the -chance myself.” - -“Why don’t ye hunt fer it, then?” demanded Conlan testily, “ef I was -shuriff——” - -“Yes?” said Selwood, laying his cards flat on the table for a moment -and facing him, “what would you do if you were sheriff?” - -“I’d try, anyway,” said the old man, with a touch of scorn, “to find -a trace of somethin’. I’d not stay on my own ranch an’ let th’ world -go hang! I’d ride th’ hills, ’tenny rate.” - -A slow paleness crept into Selwood’s face, giving it an odd ashen -hue, like a candle. He laid down his hand definitely and looked -round at the ten or twelve men lounging in the room. - -Among them were Bossick and one or two others who had suffered at -the hands of the mysterious thieves of Nameless. - -“I know that Jake here voices the feeling which has been growing -against me for some time,” he said evenly, “and this is as good a -time as any to speak about it.” - -“You’re our sheriff, Price, an’ a damned good one,” spoke up Bossick -loyally, “an’ I for one have nothing to say against you. I know—no -one better—what you’re up against. I trailed my own stuff into that -river with you, an’ I know that they simply vanished. I’ve done my -own darndest to unravel th’ mystery, an’ I can’t see what more any -man’d do, sheriff or not!” - -Selwood smiled at him. - -“Thanks, John,” he said, “I’ll not forget that. But I hate to have -my friends think I’m laying down on the job. I haven’t said anything -about what I’ve been doing, preferring to wait until I had something -to show, but that time seems far off still. This is the smoothest -work I ever saw, baffling——. I don’t stand to simple reason. We know -beef cattle don’t fly—and yet that seems the only way they could -have got out of the country. They go—and they leave no trail. I -know, for I’ve ridden the hills, Jake, notwithstanding, in dragnet -fashion. Ask my wife how many nights I’ve slept at home since the -last raid. Take a look at my horse out there. He’s hard as iron and -lean as a rail. And there’s another at home that looks just like -him. If I haven’t found anything it’s not because I haven’t -traveled.” - -Several men stirred and one spoke. - -“I don’t think many of us blame you, Price,” he said, “but it does -gall a feller to lose stock an’ have to stand helpless.” - -“And how do you think it galls me to fail to catch the lifters?” -asked Selwood quietly. “It’s my job—my—my honor.” - -He picked up his cards again and turned to the table. - -“But no matter what is said, or thought, about me,” he finished, -“every day of my further hold on office will be given over to the -same hunt—until I find what I’m after, or give up as a failure.” - -Hink Helsey, the bearded man who had sat on the store porch that day -of the fight between Selwood and McKane, now dropped the forward -legs of his chair to the floor and sat up, doubling his knife and -putting it away in a pocket. - -“Sheriff,” he said, “I’m stackin’ on you, along with Bossick. I -think you’ll ketch yer game—an’ I think you’re already on th’ right -trail.” - -McKane looked at him as if he could kill him and his tongue itched -to flail both men, the speaker and Selwood, for he knew that they -meant the same thing. - -There was one listener, however, who said nothing and whose sharp -eyes scanned each face in the room with painstaking thoroughness. -This was Sud Provine, a rider from Sky Line who had come down for -the mail. - -The Sky Line men never stayed long at Cordova, except as they came -now and again for a night at play. - -When the talk had changed from the all-absorbing topic of the stolen -cattle, this worthy rose, took his sack and departed. - -Several pairs of eyes followed him, but no one spoke of him. - -There was something about the Sky Line riders which seemed to -preclude discussion in the open. - - * * * * * - -Price Selwood had told the truth. - -There was not a night of the long warming weeks of spring which had -not seen him, a shadow in the shadows, riding the slopes and flats -of Nameless. Sometimes he sat for hours high on some shoulder of the -hills watching the bowl beneath with the moonlight sifting down in a -silver flood. Again, when the nights were dark, he rode up under the -very lip of Rainbow Cliff and watched and listened, his every sense -as acute as a panther’s. There were times when he sat for half a -night within hailing distance of Kate Cathrew’s stronghold, and once -her dogs, winding him, yammered excitedly. This brought out a -stealthy listener, whose only betrayal was the different note in the -dogs’ voices. - -But someone was there in the darkness of the veranda, and Selwood -outstayed him, whoever he was—outstayed the animals’ excitement, -their curiosity, and left with the hint of coming dawn to drop back -down the slants and sleep the day away at home. - -Night again saw him travelling, and always his one obsession -travelled with him—the hard-and-fast presentiment that Kate Cathrew -was the tangible element in the smoke-screen of mystery which rode -the country. - -It was not long after the talk at the store, perhaps a week or such -a matter, when he got the first faint inkling of a clue. It was -scarcely more, yet it served to sharpen his wits to a razor edge. It -was not moonlight, neither was it clear dark of the moon, but that -vague time in between when a pale sickle sailed the vault and shed -its half-light to make shadows ghostly and substance illusive. - -Selwood had ridden all the lower reaches of Nameless that week, had -skirted the western end of Mystery and even trailed far into the -Deep Hearts themselves in an effort to find something, anything, -which might tell him he was at least on the right track. - -He hardly knew what it was for which he searched—perhaps an old -trail, perhaps a secret branding fire. But he had found nothing. So -he fell back on his night riding again, and as always this led him -instinctively into the region of Sky Line Ranch. He had crossed the -river near the head of Nance Allison’s tilled land, and had sat a -moment peering down the length of the brown stretch where the rows -of young corn were springing bravely. - -It pleased the sheriff to see this promise of a fair crop, -for he knew the girl, and had known her father for an honest, -straightforward man. The hard effort of the family to get along was -known to all the ranchers and earned its mead of admiration in a -land where work was regarded almost as a religion. - -Nameless could condone wrong, but not shiftlessness. - -And this girl was not shiftless. - -Instead her sharp management and her heavy labor were matters of -note. So the sheriff took special cognizance of the look of her big -field of corn and nodded in pleased satisfaction. - -“Too bad she lost those six steers,” he told himself, “they’d have -helped a lot in her year’s furnishing. Game young pair.” - -Then he moved on up into the blue-brush that clothed the slants by -the river and made for the heights. - -Three hours later he was sitting sidewise in his saddle beside the -well-worn trail which led up to Sky Line. He was not too close, -being ensconced in a little thicket of maple about fifty yards back -and above. He had spent many an hour here before. - -It afforded a good view of the trail, and better still, a splendid -chance to hear. - -Twice in the last month he had heard and seen a bunch of Kate’s -riders coming home from Cordova where they had gone to gamble. But -this fact had been unproductive of anything sinister. - -They had ridden boldly, as behooves innocent men, their horses -climbing slowly with rattle of spur and bit-chain, the squeak and -whine of saddles. - -Selwood had reached a hand to his horse’s nose to preclude its -neighing, and had seen them pass on up and disappear. - -Next day he had unostentatiously made sure that these men had played -at McKane’s—in both instances. - -And now he waited again, seemingly in a foolish quest. - -He knew it would seem so to an observer. It seemed so to him when he -regarded it with reason. But reason was not actuating him. It was -instinct—hunch. - -So Sheriff Price Selwood—whom Kate Cathrew quite frankly hated—sat -in the darkness and watched and listened beside her trail, a lost -little thread on the vast expanse of the wooded slopes. - -A long hour passed, filled with the soundful silence of the -wilderness. He heard an owl call and call in mournful quaver from -far below, another answer. He knew that some hunting animal was -abroad in the manzanita to his right, for he caught a thud and -rustle, the pitiful, shrill scream of a rabbit. A night bird gave -out a sweet, alert note from time to time and an insect drummed in a -pine tree. - -And then he heard, or thought he did, another sound. - -It was so far off and faint that he could not be sure, and for a -time he fancied he might have been mistaken. Then it came again—the -crack of hoofs on stone, and once more silence. - -He held his breath, listening. - -Once again he heard that cracking of hoofs—and this time he knew -them for cloven hoofs. A cattle-brute was coming up the trail toward -him. There was nothing in that fact to cause undue excitement—except -one thing. - -Under ordinary conditions that steer would be lying in some snug -glade chewing its cud. In no natural case would it be coming up a -trail at a smart pace—with a horse behind it! - -And there _was_ a horse behind it. - -Selwood heard now distinctly the quieter step of a saddle horse. - -He leaned forward, gripping his own mount’s nose, and strained his -eyes in the illusive half-light. Presently he saw what he knew he -would see—a rider, driving one lone steer up the trail to Sky Line. - -It was too dark to see anything else—who the man was, or what manner -of steer he drove, or what horse he rode. - -And though he waited till the cooler breath of the night warned him -of coming day he saw nothing more. - -He spent half the next day at Cordova, listening, but though several -cattlemen came in there was nothing said of a loss among them. - -But the day after old man Conlan was in and fit for durance. - -He threw his ragged hat on McKane’s floor and jumped on it, reviling -the law and all it stood for. - -“Two more!” he bellowed with a break of tears in his old voice. -“By——! ef this ain’t th’ limit! I only had sixteen left an’ th’ two -best out th’ lot come up missin’ this mornin’! Ain’t no trail agin. -They’s tracks all over, sure—but th’ other stock is on th’ slope an’ -this time there just ain’t _nothin’_!” - -Barman, from up on Nameless, was at the store and he and McKane -tried to calm the old man down, though the cattleman’s own blood was -roiled. - -“It is a damned dirty shame!” he said indignantly, “have you told -Selwood?” - -“Him?” grunted Conlan. “Hell!” - -“He’s here now,” said McKane, “just getting down.” - -Price Selwood entered in time to hear the last of the old man’s -tirade, to catch the drift of what had happened, and his eyes glowed -for a second. - -He laid a hand on Conlan’s arm. - -“Jake,” he said, “hold in a little longer.” - -“Hold hell!” said the other shaking off the hand, “I’ll be ready for -the county house in Bement in another three months!” - -“I don’t think so, Jake,” said the sheriff quietly, “tell me—were -those two steers branded?” - -“’Course. Plain as day. J. C. on right hip, swaller-fork in left -ear. One was roan an’ t’other a bay-spot.” - -Selwood turned without a word, left the store, mounted and rode -away. - -“Jest like him!” said Conlan bitterly, “goes a’ridin’ off all -secret-like an’ snappy—’s if he knowed somethin’ or wanted us to -think he did.” - -“Mebby he does,” said Barman. - - * * * * * - -Sheriff Selwood rode straight up to Sky Line Ranch. It took him a -good three hours, going fast, and it was far after noon when he -pulled rein at Kate Cathrew’s corral gate and called for her. - -She came, frowning and inhospitable. - -“What do you want of me?” she asked coldly. - -“Nothing,” said Selwood, “except to tell you I’m going to take a -look around your place.” - -“Look and be damned!” she flared. “What do you think you’ll find?” - -“Well—” he drawled, smiling, “I might find a couple of steers -branded with J. C. on the right hip.” - -For one fraction of a second the black eyes burning sombrely on his -flickered, lost their direct steadiness. - -Selwood laughed, though he was alert in every nerve and his right -hand was on his thigh near to the butt of the gun that hung there. -Caldwell and several other riders stood close, their eyes on him. He -thought of John Allison, found dead at the foot of Rainbow Cliff, to -all intents the victim of accident. - -“What’s the matter, Kate?” he asked pointedly. “Suffering from -nerves? Didn’t think you had any.” - -And he turned to ride over toward the corral. - -Kate’s flaming orbs sought the face of her foreman. - -“Go with him,” they telegraphed, and Caldwell went. - -Selwood covered every foot of the home place of Sky Line in a grim -silence, looking for anything. He looked into corral and stable, -brush pasture and branding pen, but found no sign of the stolen -steers. - -When at last he rode away it was straight down along the face of -Rainbow Cliff toward the west. He did not know why he skirted the -rock-face, since it was hard going. The earth at the foot of the -great precipice was slanting and covered with the loose stone that -was forever falling from the weathered wall. It was rough on his -horse’s feet, but he held him to it—and he was surprised to find -that Caldwell was still with him, and riding inside next to the -Cliff. - -“Think I need escort, Caldwell?” he asked sarcastically. - -“Mebby as much as we need spyin’ on,” returned the other and rode -along. - -Three miles further on the sheriff turned down the mountain and the -foreman reined up, sitting in silence to watch him out of sight. - -“Wings is right,” said Selwood to himself, “those steers must have -them—but that woman’s eyes were guilty, or I’m a liar.” - -At the same moment Caldwell was heaving a long breath of relief as -he pulled his horse around and headed home. - -“This here sheriff is gettin’ a little bit inquisitive,” he thought, -then grinned sardonically. - -“But if he never gets any wiser than he is now he won’t set anything -on fire. In fifteen feet of th’ Flange an’ never saw a thing! Holy -smoke! Some sheriff! An’ yet—can’t blame him—the Flange’d fool th’ -devil himself.” - - - - - CHAPTER VIII - - BRAND FAIR - - -Nance Allison went back to Blue Stone Cañon. It was as inevitable as -the recurrent sun that she should do so. Her whole nature was -stirred to the depths by what she had found in the lonely gorge. - -The mystery of the thing lured her, set her young mind hunting for -its solution. And the little ragged boy with his weazened face and -bright brown eyes tugged at her tender heart irresistibly. - -He was a beautiful, small creature despite his thinness and his -poverty. There was intelligence in the broad forehead under the -long, loose, unkempt, dark curls, capacity for affection in the -mobile lips and a terrible hunger for love in the whole little face. - -For four days, “hand-running” as her mother said, the girl went to -the cañon. The friendship ripened with tropical speed, so that she -need not search for her quarry now, but found it coming to meet her, -peering around this boulder, watching from that vantage point. - -When she held out her arms to the child these last two times he had -come leaping into them to cling to her neck in delirious gladness, -while the sedate Collie, fast friend by this time and traitor to his -sacred charge, fawned on her knee. - -But on the fifth golden day trouble was in the atmosphere. - -Sonny came with drooping head and a pucker of sorrow in his small -brows. - -“Why, what’s the matter with my little man?” said the girl, kneeling -and holding him off to scan him searchingly. “Tell Nance, Sonny. -What is it?” - -And Sonny, dissolved in tears upon the instant, hiding his face in -Nance’s neck. - -“I—I had—” he hiccoughed, “to—to tell—Brand—a a—lie! An awful lie! -And Brand, he—hates a liar!” - -“A lie! Why, how—why——” - -“He found your horse’s tracks down the cañon and—he asked me if I -saw—any—any one strange,” wept the child. - -Nance sat down and took the boy in her lap. - -The thing was coming to a climax. - -She was meddling with someone’s private business, of that she was -sure, both from her own reasoning and her mother’s warning, and -maybe she had no right to do so, but her sweet mouth set itself into -stubborn lines as she fell to smoothing the little head, damp with -the ardours of its owner’s remorse. - -“Stop crying, honey,” she wheedled softly, “and let Nance rock you -like this.” - -She tucked her heels under her thighs and, holding the child in the -comfortable lap thus formed, began to sway her body back and forth -for all the world as if she sat in a cushioned rocker. - -What is there about a rocking woman with a child’s head on her -breast to soothe the sorrows of the world? - -The swaying motion soon checked Sonny’s sobs and she fell to singing -to him, adding her voice to the mysterious voices of the cañon in -the lilt and fall of an old camp-meeting hymn brought forth from her -memories of Missouri. And presently, when its spell had soothed the -tumult, she raised him up and fed him cookies made for the occasion, -a sugary bribe if ever there was one. - -Dirk, too, was not averse to this shameful seduction, his pale eyes -glowing with desire. - -“Tell me, Sonny,” said Nance, “does Brand cook for you?” - -“Sure,” said the child, “sure he does—but he’s gone all day and we -get awful hungry ’fore he comes at night.” - -“I should think so!” thought Nance grimly, “two meals a day! When a -little child should eat whenever it’s hungry, to grow! This precious -Brand is about due for an investigation.” - -Aloud she said: - -“Sonny, I’m going to stay with you all day—and I’m going to wait and -see Brand.” - -The boy was aghast at this statement, and it was plain from the -distress he showed that it was unprecedented. - -“If you do,” he said miserably, “maybe Brand will take me away again -and—and I’ll never see you any more.” - -But Nance had other plans and she shook her head. - -That was a lovely day. It was warmer than usual, since summer was -stepping down the slopes of the lonely hills, and the strangely -assorted trio in Blue Stone Cañon enjoyed it to the full. - -They explored far up the narrow defile, the child holding to the -girl’s hand and skipping happily, the Collie pacing beside them, a -step to the left, two steps to the rear. - -They watched the trout waving in the sunlit pools at noon, and waded -in a riffle to find barnacles under rocks that Nance might show -Sonny the tiny creature which built such a wonderful little house of -infinitesimal sticks and mortar. - -But as the sun dropped over toward the west and the shadows deepened -in the great gorge, Nance began to feel the loneliness, the cold -silence, the oppression of the unpeopled wilderness. - -The voices seemed to raise their tones, to become menacing. More and -more she realized what it must mean to a child left alone in the -cañon, and a deep and rising indignation swelled within her. - -This Brand fellow, now—he must be cold-blooded as they made them, -cruel—no, Sonny loved him. He could not be exactly that. - -But what sort of man could he be? - -She held the child close in her warm arms as she rocked again and -pondered the problem. She did not know what she intended to say to -him, once she faced him, but of one thing she was certain—he would -know, in no uncertain terms, indeed, what a monstrous thing it was -to leave a child alone in Blue Stone Cañon—alone, to listen to its -mysterious voices, to feel its chill and its menace of shadows! - -Why, it was a wonder the little mind did not crack with strain, the -small heart break with fear! - -Unconsciously she hugged Sonny tighter, making of her body, as it -were, a bulwark between him and all harm, seeming to challenge -the world for his possession. It was astonishing how the child -had crept into her heart in these few short days—how hungrily -her arms had closed about him. She had made his cause her own -high-handedly—perhaps without reason. - -She was thinking of these things when the Collie barked sharply and -leaped away in welcome. Nance flung a startled glance over her -shoulder—and got to her feet, sliding the boy down beside her, an -arm still about his ragged shoulders. - -A man stood at the corner of the jut of stone beyond the pool. - -He was tall, somewhere around six feet, a horseman born by his -build, narrow of hip and flat of thigh. He was clad in garments -almost as much the worse for wear as Sonny’s—a blue flannel shirt -and corduroy tucked into boots. But Nance saw in that first swift -glance that these habiliments were different from those of their -like which McKane sold in Cordova, that seemed made for the man who -wore them, so perfectly had they fitted him once. - -Under a peaked sombrero with a chin-strap run in a bone slide, a -pair of dark eyes bored into Nance’s, unsmiling. A very dark face, -almost Indian in clean-cut feature and contour, with repressed lips -and thin nostrils, completed the picture. - -The newcomer did not speak, but stood holding the bit of a handsome, -huge, black horse. - -“Brand!” called the boy, “Oh, Brand!” - -At that name Nance Allison found her tongue. - -“I’ve been waiting for you,” she said calmly, “I’m glad you’ve -come.” - -“Yes?” he said in a singularly deep, sweet voice. - -That voice disconcerted Nance upon the instant, stole some of her -fire, so to speak. She had been ready to tackle him on the issue at -once, to fight, if necessary, with a flood of reasons and protests -against his treatment of Sonny. - -Now, suddenly, she felt a vague sense of having intruded, of -meddling with another’s affairs. But she was not one to back down -from any righteous stand—and Sonny’s cause was righteous in every -sense, it seemed to her. - -So she gazed steadily into the direct dark eyes and nodded -decidedly. - -“Yes—I am,” she repeated, “I—want to talk to you.” - -The man dropped the rein over the black’s head and came forward a -step or two. - -“Quite a rare experience,” he said, smiling, as he removed his hat -and ran his brown fingers through the thick black hair that stood up -from his sweated forehead, “it’s been a long time since any woman -has wanted to talk to us—eh, Sonny?” - -“But—Oh, she talks sweet, Brand!” cried the child eagerly, “and -she—holds me on her lap!” - -At the profound awe in the small voice the man’s face grew quickly -grave. - -“We must be pretty far gone as vagabonds!” he said, “that makes me -think what a woman’s love must mean to a child. You have been a gift -of God, dropped out of the blue to Sonny, Miss Allison, and I ought -to thank you.” - -“Why—you—you know who I am?” cried the girl, astounded. - -“Certainly. And I know how long you’ve been coming here to the -cañon. I know where you live, too—down on the flats by the river.” - -His slow, amused smile at her evident discomfiture was engaging. It -disarmed Nance, made her feel more than ever an intruder. - -“I know what lost waifs you must think us—and you are partly right. -We are. I’ve watched you with Sonny twice, and I have not removed -our camp—if such it could be called—because I didn’t think you’d -talk.” - -“I haven’t,” said Nance, “except to my own family.” - -“Since you have found us out,” he went on, “I shall tell you that -Sonny is not the neglected little cast-off that you must naturally -think him. I have hidden him here for a purpose. We have a purpose, -the boy and I, and we have traveled many miles in its pursuit. We do -seem mysterious—but we’re not so greatly so, after all. I try to -care for him as best I may when I must be so much away from him. If -it wasn’t for Dirk I couldn’t leave him as I do.” - -“He’s well protected,” said Nance, “I used Sonny himself to betray -the dog. I couldn’t do otherwise.” - -“I know something of it—Sonny didn’t tell me, but I saw the signs of -your scuffle. It was printed plain in the sand and shale.” - -“No—Sonny didn’t tell,” said Nance regretfully, “and I made him a -liar—when I didn’t mean to. I asked him not to tell you that I’d -been here. I was afraid you’d take him away. I didn’t think you’d -ask him point blank.” - -“I’ve taught the boy not to talk,” said the man—“it’s a vital -necessity to us.” - -“He doesn’t. I couldn’t find out a thing, for all I wheedled -shamelessly, except that you were Brand, and that you two ride -always on Diamond there.” - -“My name is Fair, Miss Allison—Brand Fair, and that is Sonny’s name -also. But—we don’t tell it to strangers.” - -He smiled at her again, a slow creasing of the lines about his lips, -a pleasant narrowing of his eyes. - -“Then I—” there was an elemental quality of gladness in Nance’s -voice, though she was utterly unconscious of it, “am not a -stranger?” - -“You are Sonny’s friend,” he replied, “and we give you our trust.” - -The girl swallowed once and tightened her hold on the child’s thin -shoulders. There was something infinitely pathetic, infinitely -intriguing in this situation, and it gripped her strongly. - -“I—thank you,” she said awkwardly, “I’ll not betray it.” - -“I’m sure you won’t,” said Brand Fair, “and for the present, if -you’ll accept us at our face value, we’ll be mighty glad—eh, Sonny?” - -“I’ve been glad all the time,” said Sonny fervently, “and so’s -Dirk.” - -“Ingrates!” laughed the man. “Here I’ve shared my poor substance -with you two for—a very long time—and at the first bribe of meat and -kisses you turn me down cold!” - -“Oh!” cried Nance, flushing, “you know _all_ about us!” - -“It’s my business to know all about one who invades my solitude, -isn’t it?” - -But here Sonny could stand Brand’s badinage no longer and pulling -away from Nance he ran to him, and clinging about his knees, begged -forgiveness for the lie whose memory troubled his clear little soul. - -The man touched the unkempt small head with a tender hand. “Sure, -old-timer,” he said gently; “that’s all right. A gentleman must lie -when a lady commands—he couldn’t do anything else.” - -“You make me feel like a sinner!” said Nance, “I hope you’ll forgive -me, too.” - -The man took Sonny’s hand as she made ready to leave and turned down -the cañon with her. - -“We’ll form a guard-of-honor in token of that,” he said, “and in -seeing you off we’ll invite you back again. Sonny would miss you -now, you know. But just remember always, Miss Allison, please—that -in a way we’re keeping out of sight—until—until some time in an -uncertain future. Consider us a secret, will you not?” - -Nance Allison rode home to Nameless with her head in a whirl. Life, -that had seemed to pass her by in her plodding labor and her patient -bearing of trouble, had suddenly touched her with a flaming finger. - -She had found mystery and affection in the silence of Blue Stone -Cañon—and now there was something else, a strange vibrant element, -thin as ether and intangible as wind, a sense of elation, of -excitement. She felt a surge within her of some nameless fire, an -uplift, a peculiar gladness. - -“Mammy,” she said straightly when she stepped in at the cabin door, -“I’ve found the man!” - -“Whew! Some statement, Sis!” cried Bud as he shambled across the -sill behind her. “What’s he like?” - -“Why—I don’t just know. He’s tall—and he wears clothes that have -once been fine—and he has the straightest eyes I ever saw. His -name’s Fair—Brand Fair—and he’s some relation to Sonny, for that is -his name, too.” - -“I hope you gave him that piece of your mind you laid out to?” -pursued Bud. - -“Why, no—no,” said Nance wonderingly, looking at him with -half-seeing eyes, “I don’t—believe—I did!” - -Mrs. Allison looked up from her work of getting supper at the stove. - -“I mind me,” she said, “of the first time I ever set eyes on your -Pappy. I was goin’ to frail him good because he’d run his saddle -horse a-past th’ cart I was drivin’, kickin’ a terrible dust all -over my Sunday dress—it was camp-meetin’ at Sharfell’s Corners—an’ -then—he laughed an’ talked to me—an’ I forgot my mad spell. His eyes -jest coaxed th’ wrath out of my heart—then an’ ever after.” - -“Why, Mammy,” said Nance, “that’s just what happened here! This man -talked to me and I forgot my mad spell! I never said a thing I’d -stayed to say! And I promised to keep the secret of him and Sonny in -the cañon.” - -“H’m!” said Bud as he sidled into his chair and smoothed his bronze -hair, wet from his ablutions at the well, “H’m—Mammy, why’d you tell -her that? I wish you hadn’t.” - -“Why?” said Nance, but her brother shook his head. - - - - - CHAPTER IX - - GOLDEN MAGIC - - -Something had happened to Nance Allison. For the first time in her -healthy young life sleep refused to visit her. Even her terrible -grief at the death of her father had given way to sleep at last and -she had forgotten her tragedy for a blessed time. - -But on the night following her interview with the strange man of the -cañon she was wide awake till dawn. - -She was not uncomfortable. She did not think she was ill. But an odd -inner warmth surged all through her, a pleasant fire ran in her -veins. She lay in her bed with her hands beneath her head and -thought over and over each phase of the day she had spent with -Sonny, each incident that had led up to the appearance of Brand -Fair. Then, with a peculiar delight, she went over his every word, -every movement. She remembered the look of his brown hand on the -black horse’s bit, the tilt of his hat, the way the chin-strap lay -along his lean, dark cheek. She recalled the direct glance of his -eyes, the slow smile that creased his lips’ corners. - -He was like no other man she had ever seen. - -There was a sweetness in the tones of his deep voice, a sense of -restfulness and strength about him. He seemed to fit in with her -dreams of the best things to be had in life—like lace curtains and -the rag carpet which was slowly growing in her Mammy’s hands. - -His name, too—Brand Fair. She liked the sound of it. - -And it was Sonny’s name. Suddenly she sat bolt upright, staring at -the darkness. Fair—Sonny Fair! Could it be that Brand was Sonny’s -father? For some inexplicable reason a cold hand seemed to clutch -her heart, a feeling of disaster to encompass her. - -“Now why” she asked herself slowly, “should that make any -difference? Wouldn’t he be just as nice—just as pleasant to talk -to?” - -She sat a long time holding her two braids in her hands, twirling -the ends around her fingers, thinking. - -Why was she so pleased with this stranger, she wondered? - -She had seen many men in her life—there were the cowboys from the -Upper Country whom she saw at Cordova, nearly every time she went -there, there was McKane, and Sheriff Price Selwood. - -She liked the sheriff. He was a kindly man under his stern exterior, -she knew. His eyes were direct, like Fair’s somewhat, and he had the -same seeming of quiet strength. He had been at the cabin quite a few -times after her father’s death, asking all sorts of questions about -his manner of life, his experience in the hills, and so forth. -Yes—Fair was a little like the sheriff, only more so—oh, very much -more so—quiet, steady, one whose word you would take without -question. - -He was different, that was all—different. - -He had not always lived in the hills, that was certain. She lay down -once more and tried to sleep, but her eyes would not obey her will. -They came open each time she closed them to see this man standing at -the jut of stone, his hand on the black’s bit—at the pool by the -cave below where he bade her good-bye—still there when she looked -back from far down the cañon. - -She heard Old John, the big plymouth-rock rooster, crow for midnight -from his perch in the rafters of the stable—and again at false dawn -a little while before daylight. - -“Well, I’d like to know what ails me,” she thought to herself as she -got up with the first grey shafts above Mystery Ridge, “I never -stayed awake all night in my life before.” - -It was indicative of the great good health and strength there was in -her that she felt no ill effects from the unusual experience. She -brushed her hair and pinned it neatly around her head in a shining -coronet, put on a clean denim dress from the clothes-press in the -corner, laced up the heavy shoes she had to wear about her man’s -work, and went softly out to light the kitchen fire, to draw a fresh -pail of water and to stand lost in rapt adoration of the pageant of -coming day. She washed her face and hands in the basin and came -blooming from the cold water, content with her lot, happy to be -alive—and to know that Brand and Sonny Fair were in Blue Stone -Cañon, and that they called themselves her friends. - -She had never had a special friend before—not since those far-back -little-girl days in Missouri. - -“Mammy,” she said at breakfast, “I never slept a wink last night. I -kept thinking about Sonny and Brand all the time—wondering why -they’re hiding, and what relation they are, and why they live so -hard and poor like. It seems dreadful, don’t it?” - -“Seems funny, if you ask me,” said Bud shortly, “maybe this Brand -feller knows something of all this rustling that’s been going on up -and down Nameless.” - -Nance laid down her knife and fork and looked at him. - -“Of all things, Bud!” she said, “it’s not like you to cast the first -stone. And you’ve never seen this man’s face, or you wouldn’t say -that.” - -“Well, I’m not so sure of it,” returned the boy, “I hate to see you -take up so with a stranger.” - -“I trust your feelin’ for him, Nance,” said Mrs. Allison, “somehow -there’s somethin’ in a woman’s heart when she looks into a man’s -eyes, most times, which sets th’ stamp on him for good or bad. Seems -like it’s seventh sense which th’ Almighty gives us woman-kind for a -safeguard. I trust it.” - -“I guess I do, too, Mammy,” said Nance, “leastways I felt to trust -Brand Fair the first minute I laid eyes on him. He’s different.” - -Mrs. Allison said no more, but she was thinking back over the long -years to that camp-meeting time when she had meant to “frail” the -stranger, young John Allison, and how his smiling eyes had coaxed -her angry heart to peace—a peace which stayed with her always, -through hardship and poverty, through many Western moves, and which -softened now the sorrow of his absence. John Allison had seemed to -her “different” also. - -For some subconscious reason Nance stayed away from the cañon for -several days. She busied herself with odd jobs about the place. She -mended the wire fence around the big flat where the wild hay was -waving thick, its green floor flowing with sheets of silver where -the light winds swept, and gave the harness a thorough oiling. - -As she sat in the barn door running the straps back and forth -through her hands she cast smiling eyes out at her field of corn. - -“It’s going to be a big crop, Bud,” she said, “there’ll be three -ears on every stalk and they’re mighty strong. We’ll pull the -suckers next week and cultivate it again in ten days more—and you -just watch it grow and wave its green banners.” - -“It’s already waving them,” said Bud working beside her, “it sure -looks fine.” - -There was the pride of possession in the two young faces, the quiet -joy of satisfaction in simple work well done and its reward. - -“I hope,” said the girl dreamily, “I _hope_, Bud, that there’ll be -enough left over after we pay McKane to get the carpet woven. -Mammy’s got nearly enough balls already, and we can take it in to -Bement in the early fall and go back after it about two weeks -later.” - -Bud’s eyes sparkled. - -“Gee! But that would be good,” he said wistfully, “a regular -holiday. I’d like to see a town again.” - -“One trip I’d go with you and the next we’d make Mammy go. It’d set -her up, give her something to think about all winter,” planned -Nance, “she don’t get out like we do.” - -So they looked ahead to the meagre joys of their poor life and were -happy. - -Two days later Nance again rode Buckskin to the cañon, and this time -she went in the afternoon. - -The eager gladness of the child, the vociferous welcome of the -Collie, gave her a feeling of guilt that she had stayed away so -long, and she made glowing holiday with her cookies, her songs and -her laughter, so that the hours flew on magic wings—and Brand came -home before they were even beginning to look for him. - -He came upon them silently, as he had done before, and Nance sprang -up in confusion. - -“How do you always get here so quietly?” she asked, “I never heard a -sound.” - -“Look at Diamond,” he replied smilingly, “we always follow the -water. A stream leaves no tell-tale tracks. Even Sonny can swim like -a fish.” - -Nance sobered quickly. - -A disturbing thought of Bud’s remark about rustlers came into her -mind—and she thought of those ninety steers of Bossick’s driven into -Nameless and whisked out of the country. Of course ninety head of -cattle couldn’t go down the big river indefinitely—but she didn’t -like the suggestion. - -“No,” she said, “it don’t. That’s what the rustlers seem to think.” - -She looked him square in the eyes, and was satisfied. - -There was no consciousness in those smiling depths, not the faintest -flicker of a shadow. Whatever mystery might attach to him, this man -felt nothing personal in her speech. - -And so she sat down again with Sonny in her lap and Brand sat down -opposite, and they fell to talking there in the whispering silence, -while the late sun gilded the high blade of the rimrock and the cool -shadows deepened in the gorge. It was strange fairy-land to Nance, -and all the inner country of her spirit shone and sparkled under a -fire of stars. She had never felt so before—never known the -half-tremulous excitement which filled her now. - -When this man spoke she listened avidly, her blue eyes on his face. -He seemed the visible embodiment of all she had missed in life, the -cities, the open seas, the distant lands and the pleasures. As he -sat before her in his worn garments which might have denoted a -poverty as great as hers, he seemed rich beyond compare, a potentate -of the world. He smoked small brown cigarettes which he made from a -little old leather pouch and rolled with the dexterity of long -usage, and he buried each stub carefully in the sand. - -He was a marvellous person, indeed, and Nance regarded him in a sort -of awe. - -“I’ve been in to Cordova a time or two,” he said casually, “and have -met the sheriff and several others. To them I’m a prospector. There -seems to be a lot of unrest in the country.” - -“It’s the rustlers,” said Nance, “a lot of cattle have disappeared, -and some folks blame the sheriff. I don’t. I think he does all he -can. It’s a great mystery. We lost some ourselves. I’ve ridden -myself down looking for them, and so has my brother, Bud, and we’ve -never found a hoof-mark.” - -“Strange. Isn’t there any one you might suspect in these hills?” - -“I’ve heard that Sheriff Selwood is watching Kate Cathrew, but the -others laugh at him.” - -Fair’s eyes narrowed just a fraction of an inch. - -“Cathrew?” he said. “Who’s she?” - -“The woman who owns Sky Line Ranch,” returned Nance grimly, “and my -enemy.” - -“What? Your enemy? How’s that?” - -“Simple as two and two. She’s a cattle queen—they call her Cattle -Kate Cathrew—and she runs her stock on the slopes of Mystery. She’s -rich—lives in a wonderful house up under the edge of Rainbow Cliff, -and rides a beautiful horse. Her saddle alone is worth my team and -harness—my new harness that I had to buy to take the place of the -one that somebody cut to pieces in the night. She wants our land—our -great fine flats on Nameless that’d feed her cattle through. She’s -always wanted it. She tried to scare my father off, and since he was -found dead at the foot of Rainbow she’s tried to scare us off—Bud -and Mammy and I. But we don’t scare,” she finished bitterly, “not -worth a cent.” - -Brand Fair leaned forward, and this time his eyes had lost their -pleasant smile, and had narrowed to slits. The fingers that held his -cigarette were tense. - -“Tell me,” he said, “what does this woman look like? I’ve heard of -her a little, but I’ve never been able—I’ve never seen her.” - -“She’s handsome,” said Nance frankly, “not large, but pretty-made as -you find them. She has black hair and black eyes and a mouth as red -as a flower, and she is always frowning. She’s a good shot—so good -that I’m not much scared when she sends a ball whining over my head -as I plow my field.” - -“Good God!” shot out Fair, “does she do that?” - -Nance nodded. - -“She’s done so twice. She’s my enemy, I tell you. And so are all her -riders. Strange things have happened to us—bitter things. There was -the rope in the trail that threw Bud down the gulch—he’s never -walked straight since. There was the fire that took my last year’s -hay—and there was the harness. It seems I can’t forgive that -harness—it set us back in debt to McKane at the store. Bud—Bud—he’s -out of it. There could be no thought of forgiveness in that. If I -was a man—just an ordinary man——” - -The girl leaned forward with a doubled fist striking the cañon’s -floor. - -“If I was a man and knew who stretched that rope—I’m deadly afraid -I’d kill him.” - -Fair nodded in understanding. - -“I fear that in me,” Nance went on earnestly, “that thing which -seems to flare and make me hot all over when I think of Bud. I pray -against it every night of my life. Mammy says it’s feud in my -heart—and I say so, too.” - -For a long time the man studied her face. - -“Yes,” he said presently, “there’s something in you that would -fight—but it would take something terrible to break it loose from -leash—some cataclysmic emergency.” - -“Danger,” she said quickly, “that’s what’d loose it, danger to some -one I love, like Bud or Mammy. I know it, and am afraid.” - -“Why afraid?” asked Fair quietly, “if you had to do it, why fear the -necessary issue?” - -“Because,” she answered solemnly, “the Bible says ‘Thou shalt not -kill.’” - -A certain embarrassment seemed to overtake the man for a moment and -he dropped his eyes to his cigarette, turning it over and over in -his fingers. - -“That’s as you look at it, I suppose,” he said, “to every person his -limits and inhibitions.” - -“But let’s not talk of feuds and killings,” said Nance, laughing -brightly as she hugged the child and rubbed his tousled head. “What -do you think of our country—Nameless River and the Deep Heart -hills?” - -“Beautiful. Sonny and I have traveled over many a thousand miles in -the last two years, and we have yet to see a place more lovely—or -lonely.” - -“And can you hear the voices in the cañon? You have to be still a -long time—and then, after a while, they get louder and louder, as if -a great concourse of people were talking all at once.” - -“You have a strange and weird conception, Miss Allison,” said Fair, -“but I know what you mean. We hear them at night, Sonny and I.” - -“And that’s what I want to speak about, Mr. Fair,” said Nance -hesitatingly, “I’ve thought at nights about Sonny—alone—hearing the -voices. Have you thought what it might mean to a child?” - -The man smoked awhile in silence. - -“Yes,” he said at last, “I have. But it seems unavoidable. I have no -place else to leave him.” - -“Leave him with me!” she cried, stretching out a hand imploringly, -“Oh, leave him with me—please! I’d take such good care of him.” - -But Brand Fair shook his head. - -“It does not seem advisable, much as I appreciate your offer. I -cannot tell you how much I do appreciate it—but—I don’t want any one -to know that I have Sonny—that he is in the country at all.” - -Nance gazed at him wonderingly. - -“I don’t understand it,” she said slowly, “but you know best. -Perhaps it is best that I don’t understand.” - -“Perhaps,” said Fair; “but I hope you’ll come to see us often—maybe -some day you’ll take a ride with us up to the head of Blue Stone. I -do quite a bit of exploring around and about. Will you come?” - -Nance’s face flushed with frank pleasure. “Why, I’d love it,” she -said. “We’ll cut up through Little Blue and I’ll show you Grey -Spring and the Circle. Bud and I named them. We found them three -years ago.” - -“Then we’ll consider ourselves engaged, eh, Sonny?” smiled Fair. -“Engaged to Miss Allison for a long day’s ride?” - -“And will you bring some more cookies?” asked the boy lifting eager -eyes to his adored. - -“Honey,” said Nance, kneeling to kiss him good-bye, since she was -making ready to leave, “Nance’d bring you anything she’s got or -could get. She’ll bring us all a whole big lunch.” - -“Old-timer,” said Fair severely, “I’m ashamed of you. We’ll furnish -some fish ourselves.” - -He held out a hand and the girl laid her own in it. - -For a little space they stood so, smiling into each other’s eyes and -neither knew that magic was working among the gathering shadows. -They seemed to be old friends, as if they had known each other ages -back, and the grip of their hands was a kindly thing, familiar. - -Then a sudden confusion took the girl and she drew her fingers -quickly away. - -“I’ll come,” she said, “next week—on Tuesday morning—early.” - -“Good,” said Fair, “we’ll be all ready.” - - - - - CHAPTER X - - THE SEVENTH SENSE - - -They were as good as their word, and when Nance rode up the narrow -defile on the day and hour appointed, they were waiting, fresh and -neat as abundant water and their worn garments would permit. - -Sonny wore denim overalls a shade less ragged and a little shirt -with sleeves. His face shone like the rising sun from behind Fair’s -shoulder as they sat decorously mounted on Diamond. - -“The out-riders wait the Princess,” said Fair, “good morning, Miss -Allison.” - -“Did you bring cookies?” queried the boy eagerly, “we’ve got the -fish!” - -“Good morning,” answered Nance, “sure I did, Sonny. And other -things, too. We’ll be good and hungry by noon time.” - -The sun was two hours high outside, but here between the towering -walls the shadows were still blue and cold. The murmur of the stream -seemed louder than usual, heard thus in the stillness of the early -day. The mystery of the great cut was accentuated, its charm -intensified a thousandfold to Nance. There was a strange excitement -in everything, a sense of holiday and impending joy. Her face broke -into smiles as helplessly as running water dimples, and when the two -riding ahead turned from time to time to look back she was fair as -“a garden of the Lord,” her bronze head shining bare in the blue -light, her eyes as wide and clear as Sonny’s own. - -This was adventure to Nance—the first she had ever known, and its -heady wine was stirring in her veins. - -She did not know why the tumbling stream sang a different song, or -why the glow of light creeping down from the rimrock along the -western wall seemed more golden than before. - -She only knew that where her heart had lain in her breast calm and -content with her labor and her majestic environment of hills and -river, there was now a strange surge and thrill which made her think -of the stars that sang together at the morning of creation. Surely -her treasured Book had something for each phase of human -life—comfort for its sorrows, divine approval for its happiness. - -So she rode, smiling, her hands folded on her pommel, listening to -Brand Fair’s easy speech, watching his shoulders moving lithely -under the blue flannel shirt, comparing him to the men she knew and -wondering again why he was not like them. - -They followed the stream sometimes, and again trotted across flat, -hard, sandy spaces where the floor of the cañon widened, and passed -now and again the mouths of smaller cuts diverging from the main -one. - -“About two miles from here,” she told Fair, “we leave Blue Stone and -take up Little Blue to the left. At its head lie Grey Spring and the -Circle. We’ll make it about noon.” - -The sun was well down in the great gorge when they reached the -opening of Little Blue, and in this smaller cañon which diverged -sharply at right angles, its golden light flooded to the dry bottom. - -“Little Blue has no water to speak of,” said Nance, “only holes here -and there—but they are funny places, deep and full, and they seem to -come up from the bottom and go down somewhere under the sand. They -have current, for if you throw anything in them it will drift about, -slow, and finally go down and never come up.” - -“Subterranean flow,” said Fair, “I’ve seen other evidence of it in -this country. Must have been volcanic sometime.” - -The gorge lifted and widened and presently they passed several of -these strange pools, set mysteriously in the shelving floor. - -The towering walls fell away and they had the feeling of coming up -into another world. Soil began to appear in place of the abundant -blue sand, and trees and grass clothed the floor in ever increasing -beauty. - -Fair drew Diamond up and waited until Nance rode alongside and they -went forward into a tiny country set in the ridging rock of the -shallowed cañon to where Grey Spring whispered at the edge of the -Circle. - -“See!” cried Nance waving a hand about at the smiling scene, “it is -a magic place—no less!” - -The spring itself was a narrow trickle above sands as grey as cloth, -a never-ceasing flow of water, clear and icy cold, and beyond it was -a round little flat, thick with green grass beneath spreading -mush-oaks, a spot for fairy conclaves. - -“Yes,” nodded the man, “it is magic—the true magic of Nature in -gracious perfection, unmarred by the hand of man.” - -“Are we going to have the cookies now?” came the anxious pipe of the -boy, and Fair laughed. - -“Can’t get away from the deadly commonplace, Miss Allison, with -Sonny on the job. Poor little kid—he’s about fed up on untrammeled -nature. I’m afraid I owe him a big debt for what I’ve done to -him—and yet—I am trying to pay a bigger one which someone else owes -him. Let’s camp.” - -They dropped the reins and turned the horses loose to graze, and -Fair built a little fire of dry wood which sent up a straight column -of smoke like a signal. - -Nance untied her bundle from the saddle thongs and Fair unrolled a -dozen trout, firm and cool in their sheath of leaves. He hung them -deftly to the flames on a bent green twig and Romance danced -attendance on the hour. He was expert from long experience of -cooking in the open, and when he finally announced them done they -would have delighted an epicure. Nance laid out a clean white cloth -and spread upon it such plain and wholesome things as cold corned -beef, white bread and golden butter, home-made cucumber pickles and -sugared cookies. - -They were poor folk all, the nomad man and boy, the girl who knew so -little beyond the grind of work, but they were richer than Solomon -in all his glory, for they had health and youth and that most -priceless thing of all—a clear conscience and the eager expectation -of the good the next day holds. - -They sat cross-legged about their sylvan board and forgot such -things as work and hardship and the bitterness of threatened feud, -and—mayhap—vengeance. - -They talked of many things and all the time Nance’s wonder grew at -Fair’s wide knowledge of the outside world, at his gentle manners, -his quiet reticence in some ways, his genial freedom in others. - -He told her of the cities and the sea, spoke of Mexico and this and -that far place, but mostly he brought her pictures of her own -land—the rivers of the Rockies, the Arizona mesas—and the girl, -starved for the unknown, listened open-lipped. - -They cleared away the cloth and Nance took Sonny in her lap, while -Fair stretched out at length smoking in contentment. - -The child slept, the sun dropped down the cloud-flecked vault, and -it was Fair himself who finally put an end to the enchanted hour, -rising and catching up the horses. - -“You have far to go, Miss Allison,” he said as he stood beside her -smiling down into her face, “and Sonny and I must be careful not to -work a hardship on you, or you might not come again.” - -The ride back down Little Blue was quiet. A thousand impressions -were moiling happily in Nance’s mind. Her eyes felt drowsy, a little -smile kept pulling at her lips’ corners, and yet, so wholly -inexperienced was she, she did not know what magic had been at work -in the green silence of the Circle and Grey Spring. - -It was only when Fair pulled his horse so sharply up that Buckskin -nearly stumbled on his heels that she came out of her abstraction. -He sat rigid in his saddle, one hand extended in warning, gazing -straight ahead to where Little Blue opened into Blue Stone. She -looked ahead and understood. - -A horseman was just coming into sight at the right edge of the -opening, a big red steer was just vanishing at the left—and the man -was Kate Cathrew’s rider, Sud Provine. - -He rode straight across and did not glance up the cut, and the -watchers in the shadow knew they were unobserved. - -For a long time they sat in tense silence after he had passed, -waiting, listening, but nothing followed and presently Fair turned -and looked at her. - -His lips were tightly set and his face was grave. - -“Miss Allison,” he said regretfully, “that’s the first human I’ve -seen in Blue Stone Cañon beside yourself, and it means something to -me. It means that Sonny and I must move—at once.” - -He sat thinking a moment, then raised his eyes to hers again. - -“I believe—if you will trust us a little longer—and if you can keep -him hidden—that I will take you up. I’ll give you Sonny for a while. -I feel guilty in doing so, for I know how heavily burdened you are -already, but some day I shall make it right with you—as handsomely -right as possible. Will he be too much trouble?” - -“Trouble?” cried Nance, her face radiant, “give him to me this -minute!” and she held out her arms. - -Brand turned and looked down at the boy, smiling again. - -“How about that, kid?” he asked. “Cookies and Miss Allison’s lap -instead of the cold cañon and lonesomeness—why—why, old-timer—what’s -the matter?” - -He pulled the child around a bit to scan him more closely. - -The little face was milk-white, the brown eyes wide. - -“You—going to—to give me away, Brand?” said Sonny with that curious -seeming of maturity which sometimes fell upon him. - -The man’s face grew very tender. - -“I should say not!” he said reassuringly, “I’m only going to let you -stay awhile with Miss Allison—so our enemies won’t find you when I’m -gone.” - -Nance leaned forward. - -“Enemies?” she said sharply. “Enemies, you say?” - -“A figure of speech,” smiled Fair, “but just the same we don’t want -any one beside yourself to know about us. And by the way, my name is -Smith at Cordova—and Sonny doesn’t exist.” - -“I see,” said the girl slowly, “or rather I don’t see—but as I said -before, it doesn’t matter.” - -“You’re a wonderful woman. Not one in a million would accept us as -you have done—lost waifs, ragged, hiding, mysterious. I didn’t think -your kind lived. You’re old-fashioned—blessedly old-fashioned. Why -did you accept us?” - -“My Mammy says there’s something in a woman’s heart that sets the -stamp on a man for good or bad, a seventh sense. I know there is. A -woman _feels_ to trust—or not to trust.” - -Fair nodded. - -“That’s it,” he said, “instinct—but maybe, some day, you may come to -feel it has betrayed you—in our case—my case—I mean. What then?” - -Nance shook her head. - -“It won’t, Mr. Fair,” she replied. - -The man sighed and frowned. - -“God knows,” he said, “I hope not. But let’s get on—it’s getting -pretty late.” - -Fair rode to the cave by the pool in silence. There he dismounted -and brought from the blankets such poor bits of garments as belonged -to the child, rolled them in a bundle and fastened them on Nance’s -saddle. - -“I’m sorry they are so ragged,” he apologized. - -“It doesn’t matter,” said Nance, “Mammy has stuff that can be made -over. We’ll fix him up.” - -Fair mounted again and rode with her to the mouth of Blue Stone. -There he halted and lifted Sonny to Buckskin’s rump. - -The little fellow whimpered a bit and clung to his neck, while the -man patted his bony little shoulder. - -“There—there, kid,” he said, “don’t you love Miss Allison?” - -“Yes,” wailed Sonny at last; “but—but—I just _love_ you, Brand!” - -“I’ve put in two pretty strenuous years for Sonny’s sake,” he said -softly, “but they’ve been worth while, Miss Allison.” - -“The service of love is always worth while,” said Nance, “it’s the -biggest thing in this world.” - -“And now,” said Fair, “if you’ll buck up and be a man, Sonny, I’ll -promise to come right down to the homestead some night soon and see -you—if Miss Allison will let me?” - -Something surged in the girl’s breast like a sunlit tide. - -“If you don’t, we’ll come hunting you,” she said. - -Then Fair kissed the boy, mounted Diamond and sat with hands crossed -on his pommel while Buckskin carried his double burden across the -little flat and through the belly-deep flood of Nameless whispering -on its riffle. - -On the other side Nance and Sonny turned to wave a hand and went -forward into a new life. - - * * * * * - -At the cabin door Bud stared with open mouth when they rode up, but -Mrs. Allison, who had been watching them come along the flat far -down, and who had vaguely understood, came forward with uplifted -arms. - -“I figgered it wouldn’t be so long before you brought him home,” she -said, “a child is what we do need in this here cabin. What a fine -little man! An’ supper’s all hot an’ waitin’.” - -“I knew you’d understand, Mammy,” said the girl gratefully, “you’ve -got the seventh sense, all right, and one or two more. No wonder our -Pappy loved you all his life.” - -And so it was that Sonny Fair came into the warmth and comfort of -fire and lamplight, of chairs and tables, and beds with deep -shuck-ticks, and to the loving arms of woman-kind, after two years -of riding on the big black’s rump, of sleeping on the earth beside a -campfire, and the long lonely days of waiting. - -And, faithful as his shadow, Dirk the Collie sat on the stone that -formed the doorstep and refused to budge until both Nance and Sonny -convinced him that all was well, and that this was home. - -When Nance sat to her gracious hour with the Scriptures that night -it seemed a very fitting coincidence that the Book should fall open -at the Master’s tender words, “Suffer little children to come unto -Me, for of such is the kingdom of Heaven.” - - - - - CHAPTER XI - - THE ASHES OF HOPE - - -It was dark of the moon and Sheriff Price Selwood sat on his horse a -little distance from McKane’s store at Cordova, his hat pulled over -his brows, his hands on his saddle horn. - -Inside the lighted store four tables were going. - -A bunch of cattlemen from the Upper Country were in and most of the -Cathrew men were down from Sky Line. - -The nine or ten bona-fide citizens of Cordova were present also, and -McKane was in high fettle. The few houses of the town were dark for -it was fairly late. All these things the sheriff noted in the -quarter hour he sat patiently watching. - -When he was satisfied that all the families were represented inside, -that the dogs of the place were settled to inaction, and that no one -was likely to leave the store for several hours at least, he did a -peculiar thing. - -He tied his horse to a tree near where it stood and went forward -quietly on foot, stopping at the rack where the Cathrew horses stood -in a row. They were good stock. Cattle Kate would have nothing else -at Sky Line. - -Selwood took plenty of time, patting a shoulder here, stroking a -nose there, and finally stepped in between a big brown mare and the -rangy grey gelding which Sud Provine always rode. He fondled the -animal for a few moments, then ran his hand down the left foreleg -and picked up the hoof. It was shod, saddle-horse fashion. He placed -the foot between his knees, very much after the manner of a -blacksmith, and taking a small coarse file from his coat pocket, -proceeded to file a small notch in the shoe. - -Then he put the file away, gave the grey a last friendly slap, got -his own horse and rode away. - -He intended to have a good night’s sleep. - - * * * * * - -Several days later Kate Cathrew came down to Cordova and held a -short private conversation with McKane. - -“McKane,” she said, “who gives you the heaviest trade in this man’s -country?” - -“You do,” said McKane promptly, “far and away.” - -“Do you value it?” - -“Does a duck swim?” - -“Then give me a moment’s attention,” said Kate Cathrew, “and keep -what I say under your hat.” - -“I’m like the well that old saw tells of—the stone sinks and is -never seen again. Confession in the heart of a friend, you know.” - -“Thanks. Now listen.” - -When the woman rode away a half hour later, carrying another of -those letters from New York which the trader had come to hate ever -since Selwood’s suggestion concerning the writer, his eyes had a -very strange expression. It was a mixture of several expressions, -rather—astonishment, of personal gratification, and a vague, -incongruous regret. If he had been a better man that last faint -seeming of sorrow might have denoted the loss of an ideal, the death -of something fine. - -But he looked after Cattle Kate with a fire of passion that was -slowly growing with every interview. - - * * * * * - -Life at the homestead on Nameless took on a new color with the -advent of Sonny Fair. Mrs. Allison, an epitome of universal -motherhood, looked over the scant, well-mended belongings of the -family and laid out such articles as she judged could be spared. - -These she began expertly to make over into little garments. - -“When did Brand buy you these pants, Sonny?” she inquired, but the -child shook his head. - -“I don’t know,” he answered. - -“H’m. Must be pretty poor,” she opined, but Bud scowled in -disapproval. - -“Pretty durn stingy, I’d say,” he remarked. - -“Hold judgment, Bud,” counseled Nance, “when a man travels for two -years he don’t have much time to make money. We’re poor, too, but -that don’t spell anything.” - -Bud held his tongue, but it was plain he was not convinced. - -“What makes him so contrary, I wonder?” said the girl later. - -“He’s jealous,” said Mrs. Allison calmly, “because you champion th’ -stranger. It’s natural.” - -The field of corn was beautiful. - -Its blades were broad and satiny, covering the brown earth from -view, and the waving green floor came well up along the horses’ legs -as Nance rode down the rows on the shackly cultivator. - -For three days she had been at it, a labor of love. She had many -dreams as she watched the light wimpling on the silky banners, -vague, pleasant dreams that had to do with her cancelled debt at the -store, with the trip to Bement about the carpet, and with the new -blue dress she hoped to get with the surplus. - -Bud must have some new things, too, and her Mammy needed shoes the -worst way. - -All these things the growing field promised her, whispering under -the little wind, and she was happy deep in her innocent heart. - -She wondered if she dared ask Brand to let her take Sonny on that -trip to Bement, then instantly decided she should not. - -There might be someone from Nameless in the town, and Brand was -particularly insistent on his staying out of sight. - -She never ceased to wonder about that. - -What could be his reason? - -What could there be in the Deep Heart country to whom a little child -could make a difference? - -But it was none of her business, she sagely concluded, and could -wait the light of the future. Maybe Brand would some day tell her -all about it. - -So she worked and planned for two days more. At their end she drove -the cultivator to the stable and stood stretching her tired shoulder -muscles while Bud unharnessed the team. - -She looked back at the field with smiling eyes. - -“Can only get in it about once more,” she said, “it’s growing so -fast.” - -“Pretty,” Bud said, “pretty as you, almost. Do you know you’re -awfully pretty, Sis?” - -“Hush!” she laughed. “You’ll make me vain. Pretty is as pretty does, -you know.” - -“Well, the Lord knows you do enough,” returned the boy bitterly, “if -I was only half a man——” - -“Bud!” cried Nance quickly, “you’re the most sure-enough he-man I -know. You’ve got the patience and the courage of ten common men. If -it hadn’t been for your steady backing I’d never be on Nameless now. -I’d have quit long back.” - -“Like the dickens you would!” said Bud, but a grin replaced the -shadow of bitterness on his face. - -Supper that night was particularly pleasant. - -There were new potatoes and green peas from the garden down by the -river, and a plate of the never failing cookies of which Sonny could -not get enough. - -“He’s hollow to his toes,” said Mrs. Allison, “I can’t never seem to -get him full.” - -“The little shaver’s starved,” said Bud. - -“Not starved, but he ain’t had regular food—not right to grow on. I -can see a difference already.” - -Nance reached over an investigating hand to feel the small shoulder. -It bore proudly a brand new shirt made from one of Bud’s old ones. -To be sure, there was a striking dissimilitude of colors, since part -of the fabric had been under a pocket and had not faded, but Sonny -wore it with the air of kings and princes. - -“Yes, sir,” she said judicially, “he _is_ gaining, sure as the -world!” - -It seemed to Nance that night that all was well with the world, very -well. There seemed a wider margin of hope than usual, as if success, -so long denied them, was hovering like a gigantic bird above the -homestead, as if their long labor was about to have its reward. She -fell asleep thinking of the whispering field, of the trip to Bement, -and—of Brand Fair’s quiet, dark eyes, the look of the chin-strap on -his brown cheek. - -She laid a loving hand on Sonny’s little head on the pillow of the -improvised crib beyond her own big bed—and the world went swiftly -from her consciousness. She slept quickly and deeply, as do all -those who work hard in the sun and wind—the blessed boon of labor. - - * * * * * - -It seemed to her that she had hardly lost consciousness when Old -John announced from his rafter perch the coming of another day and -she saw the faint light of dawn on the sky outside. - -She dressed as usual, looked lovingly at the small face of the -little sleeper in the crib, and went out, soft-footed, to start the -kitchen fire. That done, she took the pail and went out to the well. -She rested the bucket on the curb a moment, lifted the well-board, -and stood looking at the faint aureole of light that was beginning -to crown Rainbow Cliff. The cliff itself was black, blue-black as -deepest indigo, its foot lost in the shadows that deepened down -Mystery Ridge. She could hear the murmuring of Nameless, soft and -mysterious in the dawn, feel the little wind that was beginning to -stir to greet the coming day. Then, as was her habit, she turned her -eyes out across the waving green field of her precious corn. - -It must be earlier than she thought, she reflected, for there was -not the shimmer of light which usually met her gaze. - -She looked again at the eastern sky. - -Why, yes—it was light as usual there. - -Once more she looked at the field—then she leaned forward, peering -hard, her hands still lying on the bucket’s rim. Her brows drew down -together as she strained her sharp sight to focus on what she saw—or -what she thought she saw. For a long time she stood so. Then, as -realization struck home to her consciousness, the hands on the -bucket gripped down until the knuckles shone white under the tanned -skin. Her lips fell open loosely. The breath stopped for a moment in -her lungs and she felt as if she were drowning. An odd dizziness -attacked her brain, so that the dim world of shadow and light -wavered grotesquely. Her knees seemed buckling beneath her and for -the first time in her life she felt as if she might faint.... Her -Mammy had fainted once—when they brought John Allison home.... But -she gathered herself with a supreme effort, closed her lips, wet -them with her tongue, straightened her shoulders and, taking her -hands from their grip on the pail, walked out toward the field. - -At the gate she stopped and gazed dully at the ruin before her. - -Where yesterday had been a vigorous, lusty, dark green growth, fair -to her sight as the edges of Paradise, there was now the bald, -piteous unsightliness of destruction. - -Of all the great field there was scarcely a dozen stalks left -standing. It was a sodden mass of trampled pulp, cut and slashed and -beaten into the loose earth by hundreds of milling hoofs. - -Far across at the upper end she could dimly see in the growing light -a huge gap in the fence—two, three posts were entirely gone. It had -taken many head of cattle, driven in and harried, to work that -havoc. It was complete. - -For a long, long time Nance Allison stood and looked at it. Then -with a sigh that seemed the embodiment of all weariness, she turned -away and went slowly back to the cabin. - -At the open door she met Bud and pushed him back with both hands. -Her mother was at the stove, lifting a lid. - -At sight of her daughter’s face she held it in mid-air. - -“Hold hard, girl,” she said quietly, “what’s up?” - -Nance leaned against the door-jamb. Every fibre of her body longed -to crumple down, to let go, to relax in defeat, but she would not -have it so. - -Instead she looked at these two, so greatly dependent upon her, and -faced the issue squarely. - -“It’s the cornfield,” she said with difficulty, “it’s gone.” - -“What?” - -“Gone? Gone—how?” - -“Gone—destroyed—wiped off the earth—trampled out by cattle,” she -said dully, “every blade—every stalk—root, stem and branch!” - -“My Lord A’mighty!” gasped Mrs. Allison, and the words were not -blasphemy. - -“Cattle Kate!” cried Bud. “Oh, damn her soul to hell!” - -“Oh, Bud—don’t, don’t!” said Nance, her lips beginning to quiver, -“‘He who—who is guilty of damn—and damnation—shall be in -danger—danger of hell fire.’” - -But the boy’s blue eyes were blazing and he did not even hear her. -He jerked his sagging shoulder up, for a moment, in line with its -mate and shut his hands into straining fists. - -“Gimme a gun——” he rasped, “Pappy’s gun——” - -But the mother spoke. - -“No guns, Bud—I’ve seen feud—in Missouri. There’s land an’ sunlight -in other places beside Nameless. With life we can——” - -The boy shook his head with a slow, savage motion. - -“Not for us,” he said, “I’d die first.” - -Nance straightened by the door. She lifted her head and looked at -his grim young face. Some of its grimness came subtly into her own. - -“Right,” she said, “so would I. We belong to Nameless River—where -our Pappy left us—and here we’ll stay. Only—I pray God to keep me -from—from——” she wet her lips again, “from what is stirring inside -me.” - -“He will,” said Bud. “But I’m not so particular. We own this -land—and we’ll fight for our own.” - -“Amen,” said Nance, “we will. We’ve still got the hogs to sell. -Mammy—let’s have breakfast. I’m going down to Cordova—it’s right -McKane should know.” - - - - - CHAPTER XII - - “GET—OUT—OF—THAT—DOOR!” - - -That was a bitter ride to Nance. - -The day was sweet with the scents and sounds of summer. Birds called -from the thickets, high up the pine tops, stirred by a little wind, -sang their everlasting diapason, while she could hear far back the -voice of Nameless, growing fainter as she left it. - -At another time she would have missed nothing of all this, would -have gloried in it, drunk with the wine of nature. Now a shadow hung -over all the fair expanse of slope and mountain range, an oppression -heavy, almost, as the hand of death sat on her heart. - -She rode slowly, letting Buckskin take his own time and way, her -hands folded listlessly on her pommel, her faded brown riding skirt -swinging at her ankles. She had discarded her disfiguring bonnet for -a wide felt hat of Bud’s and her bright hair shone under it like -dull gold. She was scarcely thinking. She had given way to -feeling—to feeling the acid of defeat eating at her vitals, the hand -of an intangible force pressing upon her. - -And she had to face McKane and tell him she could not pay her debt. -That seemed the worst of all. She could go without their -necessities—her Mammy’s shoes and Bud’s new underwear—and as for the -luxuries she had planned, like the blue dress and the carpet—why, -she would cease thinking about them at once, though the giving up of -the carpet did come hard, she frankly owned to that. But to fail in -her promise to pay—ah, that was gall to her spirit! However, it -couldn’t _kill_ them, she reasoned, no matter how bitter might be -their humiliation. There was always another day, another year, for -work and hope, and there were still the hogs. They would bring, at -least, enough for the winter’s food supply of flour and sugar, salt -and tea. - -She could not turn them in on the debt—the trader must see that. - -Cordova lay sleeping under a late noon-day sun when she rode into -the end of the struggling street. A few horses were tied to the -hitch rack in front of the store and a half-dozen men lounged on the -porch. Nance went hot and cold at sight of them. - -She had hoped all the way down that McKane would be alone, for no -conversation inside the store could fail to be audible on the porch. -It would be hard enough to talk to him without an interested -audience. - -She felt terribly alien, as if these people were allied against her, -and yet she could not discern among the loungers anyone from Sky -Line. - -As she drew near she did see with a grateful thrill that Sheriff -Price Selwood sat tilted back against the door-jamb, his feet on the -rung of his chair. At sight of him a bit of the distress left her, a -faint confidence took its place. She remembered his kindly eyes that -could harden and narrow so quickly, his way of understanding things -and people. - -She dismounted and tied Buckskin under a tree and went forward. As -she mounted the steps the sheriff looked up, rose and raised his -hat. - -Nance smiled at him more gratefully than she knew. - -Then she stepped inside the door—and came face to face with Kate -Cathrew who was just coming out. McKane was behind her carrying a -small sack which held her mail and some few purchases. - -The two women stopped instantly, their eyes upon each other. - -It was the first time they had met thus pointedly. - -At sight of this woman whose unproved, hidden workings had meant so -much to her, Nance Allison’s face went slowly white. - -She stood still in the door, straight and quiet, and looked at her -in silence. - -At the prolonged intensity of her scrutiny Cattle Kate flung up her -head and smiled, a conscious, insolent action. - -“If you don’t want all the door, young woman,” she said, “please.” - -She made a move to pass, but Nance suddenly put out a hand. - -There was an abrupt dignity in the motion, a sort of last-stand -authority. - -“I do,” said the girl, “want it all. I have something to tell -McKane, and you may as well hear it.” - -The imperious face of Kate Cathrew flushed darkly with the rising -tide of her temper. - -“Get—out—of—that—door,” she said distinctly, but for once she was -not obeyed. - -The big girl standing on the threshold looked over her head at the -trader. There was a little white line pinched in at the base of -Nance’s nostrils, her blue eyes were colder and narrower than any -one had ever seen them in her life. - -“McKane,” she said clearly, so that the hushed listeners behind her -caught every syllable, “you know what a fight I’ve made to hold my -own on Nameless since my father died—or was killed. You know how -close to the wind I’ve sailed to eat, for you’ve sold me what we’ve -had. And I’ve always managed to keep even, haven’t I?” - -“Yes,” said the trader uneasily. - -“Up till six months ago when I had to go in debt for a new harness -or do no work in my fields this spring, I told you when I bought it, -didn’t I, why I had to buy it?” - -“Yes,” he said again. - -“It was because someone went into my barn one night and cut the old -harness into ribbons. That put me in debt to you for the first -time.” - -She stopped and wet her lips. There was the sound of someone rising -on the porch and Price Selwood moved in behind her. - -She felt him there and a thrill went through her, as if he had put a -hand on her shoulder. - -“I told you when I bought it that I’d pay you when my corn was -ripe—that, if it went well, I’d have far and away more than enough. -Well, it went well—so well that I knew yesterday I’d come out ahead -and be able to meet that debt and live beside. This morning that -field of corn was gone—trampled out—cut to pieces like my -harness—pounded into the dirt by a band of cattle that had been -driven—driven, you understand—over every foot of it. There was a -wide gap cut in the fence at the upper end. That’s all—but I can’t -pay my debt to you.” - -She stopped and a sharp silence fell. Outside the store in the shade -the stallion Bluefire screamed and stamped. - -Kate Cathrew took a quick step forward. - -“What for did you tell this drivel before me?” she said. “What’s it -to me?” - -“Nothing, I know,” said Nance; “maybe a laugh—maybe a hope. My big -flats on the river’d feed a pretty bunch of cattle through. And -Homesteaders have been driven out of the cattle country before now.” - -“You hussy!” cried Cattle Kate, and, bending back she flung up the -hand which held the braided quirt. The lash snapped viciously, but -Nance Allison was quicker than the whip. Her own arm flashed up and -she caught the descending wrist in the grip of a hand which had held -a plow all spring. - -Like a lever her arm came down and forced Kate’s hand straight down -to her knee, so that the flaming black eyes were within a few inches -of her face. - -“Woman,” said Nance clearly, “I’m living up to my lights the best I -can. I’m holding myself hard to walk in the straight road. The hand -of God is before my face and you can’t hurt me—not lastingly. Now -you—get—out—of—that—door.” - -And turning she moved Selwood with her as she swung the other, -whirling like a Dervish, clear to the middle of the porch. - -Kate Cathrew’s face was livid, terrible to look upon. - -She ran the short distance to the end of the platform, leaped off -and darted to her horse, her hands clawing at the rifle which hung -on her saddle. - -Selwood pushed Nance inside the store and flung the door shut. - -“That woman’s a maniac for the moment,” he said, “you’re best in -there.” - -When Kate came running back with the gun in her hands he faced her -before the closed door, his hands in his pockets. - -If any of the tense watchers had had a doubt of Price Selwood’s -courage they lost it then, for he took his life in his hands. - -“Kate,” he said quietly, “put up that gun. This isn’t outlaw -country. If you make a blunder you’ll hang just like any other -murderer—even if you are Kate Cathrew.” - -For a moment the woman looked at him as a trapped wild-cat might -have done, her lips loose and shaking, her eyes mad with rage. - -Then she struck the rifle, butt down, on the hard earth and with a -full-mouthed oath, flung around the corner, tore the stallion’s -reins from the ring in the wall and mounted with a whirl. - -She struck Bluefire once and was gone down the road in a streak of -dust. - -Selwood opened the door. - -“A narrow shave,” he said gravely, “if that had happened anywhere -but here you’d be a dead woman, Miss Allison.” - -“Perhaps,” said Nance, “she’s taken two shots at me already from the -hillside—or someone has. Well—I’ve told you, McKane, as was your -right. Now I’ll go back to Nameless.” - -She turned away, but the trader cleared his throat. - -“Ah—about the money for the harness,” he said apologetically, -“I—that is—I’ve got to collect it. Times ain’t——” - -Price Selwood swung around and shot a look at him. - -“Eh?” he said. “Got to collect——? Ah, yes, I see—at Cattle Kate’s -request! You are a fool, McKane. Here, Miss Allison—I’m the sheriff -of this county. Wouldn’t you rather owe me that money than owe it to -McKane? _I_ can wait till you raise another crop—I’m not so pushed -as our friend here. What do you say?” - -Nance raised her eyes to his and they were suddenly soft and blue -again. The tight line let go about her upper lip and a stiff smile -came instead. - -“You knew my Pappy—and I have not forgot how kind you were -after—after——. Yes, Mr. Selwood, I’d rather owe you, a whole lot -rather, and I’ll work doubly hard to pay you back.” - -Selwood drew some bills from his pocket. - -“How much, McKane?” he asked. - -The trader sullenly named the amount and received it on the spot. - -“Now if you’d just as soon,” said the sheriff, “I’ll ride out to -Nameless with you. I’d like to take a look at that trampled field.” - -As they left the town and rode out into the trail that led to -Nameless, Nance took off her hat and drew a long, deep breath. - -Selwood laughed. - -“Do you feel like that?” he asked. - -“Exactly,” said she, “like a weight was off my shoulders. That debt -to McKane was a bitter load.” - -“The trader is getting into deep water” said the sheriff. “I hate to -see him do it.” - -“How—deep water?” - -“He’s falling more and more into Cattle Kate’s power—and all for -nothing. He knows it, but seems helpless. I’ve seen the like before. -She’s a bad woman to tie to.” - -“She’s handsome—that’s one thing sure.” - -“Yes. Her type is always handsome. But I’m surprised to hear you say -so.” - -“Why?” asked the girl wonderingly. - -“Because most women hate to admit beauty in another, and of all -people on Nameless you have the least reason to see anything -attractive in her.” - -Nance sighed again, thinking of her lost corn field and of her -present appalling poverty. - -“As near as I’ll let myself come to hate,” she said, “I do hate her. -I’ve got to fight it mighty hard. You know how hard it is to fight -that way—inside your own soul.” - -“Hardest battle-ground we ever stand on,” said Selwood with -conviction. “I’ve had some skirmishes there myself—and I can’t say I -always came off victor.” - -“You can’t, sometimes, without a lot of prayer,” returned Nance -soberly, “I’ve pretty near worn out my knees on the job.” - -Selwood wanted to laugh at her naive earnestness, but caught himself -in time. - -They rode for a time in silence, Nance and Buckskin ahead, the -sheriff following on his lean bay horse. - -Presently Nance turned with a hand on her pony’s rump and looked at -him speculatively. - -“You sort of lay up something to Cattle Kate about this rustling, -don’t you?” she asked. - -He nodded. - -“I’ve watched her for months, but can’t get anything on her—not -anything tangible.” - -“I was in Little Blue Cañon the other day,” said Nance, “and saw Sud -Provine pass its mouth in Blue Stone driving a red steer north. I’ve -wondered a lot where he could have been taking it.” - -“North in Blue Stone? That’s odd. There isn’t enough feed in that -cañon to graze a calf two days.” - -“And what’s at its head?” asked Nance, “I’ve never been clear up.” - -“Blue Stone heads high in the Deep Heart hills,” said the sheriff, -“but about eight miles up from its mouth on Nameless its right wall -falls abruptly away for a distance of a couple of miles and there -one can go out on the open plain that stretches over toward the -Sawtooth Range and leads out to Marston and the railroad. There’s -some bunch grass there, but mighty little water. Nothing but the -stream in the cañon itself to come back to. And cattle driven so far -away from the home range would be a poor risk, it seems to me, for -Sky Line.” - -“Well—I wondered about it. Thought I’d tell you any way.” - -“I’m glad you did. I shall remember it.” - -At the homestead Nance led Selwood to the corn field’s lower gate -and left him. - -“Go over it if you want,” she said, “and I’ll be out in a minute or -so.” - -At the cabin she told Sonny to go into her room and stay until she -came for him. - -“I feel guilty,” she thought, “for I can trust the sheriff, but -Brand asked me to keep him hidden. I’ve got to be true to my -promise.” - -“You ask the sheriff to supper,” said Mrs. Allison, “I’ll kill a -fryer an’ make some biscuits.” - -When Nance went out she found Selwood examining the trampled field -minutely. - -“Must have had fifty head or more,” he said, “and five or six -riders. Sud Provine was one of them.” - -“Yes? How can you tell?” - -“I know his horse’s tracks,” grinned the sheriff, “it’s that big -grey gelding.” - - - - - CHAPTER XIII - - “WE’RE OUR PAPPY’S OWN—AND WE BELONG ON NAMELESS.” - - -That night at dusk as Nance sat in the open door with Sonny drowsing -in her lap, Dirk shot out across the yard like a tawny streak and -headed away toward the river. - -He made no outcry, but went straight as a dart, and presently there -came the little crack of shod hoofs on the stones of Nameless’ lip, -and a rider came up out of the farther shadows with the Collie -leaping in ecstasy against his stirrup. - -Something tightened in Nance’s throat, a thrill shot through her -from head to foot. That strange surge of warmth and light seemed to -flood her whole being again. - -“Mammy—Bud—” she said softly, “I think Brand Fair is coming.” - -Bud stirred in the darkened room, but Mrs. Allison was silent. - -“Always, soon or late,” she thought to herself, “a man comes ridin’ -out th’ night—an’ a woman is waitin’. It’s comin’ late to her—she’ll -be twenty-two come June—but it’s comin’. An’ she don’t know it yet.” - -“Good evening,” said a deep voice pleasantly as the dark horse -stopped in the dooryard, “is a stranger welcome?” - -“We’ve been listening for you every night,” said the girl simply, -“it’s been a long time.” - -“Brand!” cried the child sharply, struggling frantically to find his -feet, “Oh! Oh!—_Brand!_” - -The man dismounted and came forward. - -He lifted the boy and kissed him, holding him on his breast, while -he held out a hand to Nance. - -At its warm clasp the surging glory inside her deepened strangely. - -Mrs. Allison rose and lighted the lamp on the table. - -“Come in, stranger,” she said, “an’ set.” - -Fair came in and Nance presented him to her two relatives. - -Mrs. Allison looked deep in his face with her discerning eyes as she -gave him her toil-hard hand and nodded unconsciously. - -With Bud it was a different matter. - -There was a faint coldness in his young face, a sullen disapproval. -But Nance saw none of these things. Her eyes were dark with the -sudden dilation of the pupils which this man’s presence always -caused. There was a soft excitement in her. - -For a little while they sat in the well-worn, well-scrubbed and -polished room which was parlor, dining-room and kitchen, and talked -of the warmth of the season, the many deer that were in the hills, -and such minor matters, while Sonny clung to the man and devoured -his face with adoring eyes. - -Then the mother, harking back to the customs of another time, -another environment, rose, bade good-night, signaled her son and -retired to the inner regions. - -Bud spoke with studied coldness and shambled after her. - -Nance regarded this unusual proceeding with some astonishment. She -did not realize that this was the peak of proper politeness in the -backwoods of her Mammy’s day—that a girl must have her chance and a -clear field when a man came “settin’ up” to her. - -And so it was that presently she found herself sitting beside Brand -Fair in the doorway, for the man preferred the inconspicuous spot, -while Sonny sighed with happiness in his arms and Dirk sat gravely -on his plumy tail at his master’s knee. - -Diamond stood like a statue in the farther shadows. - -A little soft wind was drawing up the river, the stars were thick in -the night sky, and something as sweet as fairy music seemed to pulse -in the lonely silence. - -“Has old-timer been good?” Fair wanted to know jocosely, rubbing the -curly head which was no longer tousled. - -“Sure I have, Brand,” the little fellow ventured eagerly, “awful -good—haven’t I, Nance?” - -“Miss Allison, Sonny,” said Brand severely. - -“No—Nance. She told me so herself.” - -“That settles it. No one could go against such authority. But has he -been good?” - -“Good?” said Nance. “He’s brought all the happiness into this house -it’s seen for many a long day—or is likely to see.” - -“That’s good hearing,” returned the man, “and I have done a lot of -riding this past week. Tell me, Miss Allison—what sort of a chap is -this sheriff of yours?” - -“He’s the best man on Nameless River!” cried the girl swiftly, “the -kindest, the steadiest. I’d trust him with anything.” - -“Does he talk?” - -“Talk?” - -“Can he keep a still tongue in his head?” - -“I don’t know as to that—but I do know he’s been a friend to me in -my tribulation. He probably saved my life today—and he saved me a -lot of trouble.” - -“Saved your life?” queried Fair sharply, “How’s that?” - -“I swung Cattle Kate Cathrew out of McKane’s store and she was going -to shoot me but the sheriff faced her. I told her some things she -didn’t like.” - -Fair drew a long breath. - -“What was the occasion?” he asked. - -“My field of corn,” said Nance miserably, her trouble flooding back -upon her, “last night it was rich with promise—what I was building -on for my debt and my winter’s furnishing. This morning it was -nothing but a dirty mass of pulp—trampled out by cattle—and we know -that a Sky Line rider was behind those cattle. It’s some more of the -same work that’s been going on with us since before our Pappy died. -It’s old stuff—what the cattle kings have done to the homesteaders -for many years in this country. - -“If we weren’t our Pappy’s own—Bud and I—we’d have been run out long -ago. I would, I think, when Bud got hurt, if it hadn’t been for him. -He’s a fighter and won’t let go. The land is ours, right and fair, -and he says no bunch of cut-throats is going to take it from us. I -say so, too,” she finished doggedly. - -Fair reached out a hand and for a moment laid it over hers, clasped -on her folded arm. - -“Miss Allison,” he said admiringly, “you’re a wonderful woman! Not -many men would stick in the face of such colossal misfortunes. You -must love your land.” - -“I do,” she said, “but it’s something more than that. It’s a -proving, sort of—a battle line, you know, and Bud and I, we’re -soldiers. We hope we can not run.” - -“By George!” said the man, “you can’t—you won’t. Your kind don’t. -But it’s a grim battle, I can see that.” - -“It’s so grim,” said Nance quietly, “that we couldn’t survive this -winter if it wasn’t for the hogs that will be ready to market this -fall. McKane wouldn’t give me time on my debt—Cattle Kate won’t let -him. So the sheriff paid it—he says he can wait till next year for -his money—he’s not so hard pushed as the trader—and _he’s_ rich, -they say.” - -For a little while they sat in silence while Sonny, blissfully -happy, fell fast asleep in Fair’s arms. - -Then the man stirred and spoke. - -“Miss Allison,” he said, “the time has come when I am going to tell -you something—just a little bit that may give you comfort in this -hard going of yours. I want you to know that more than one force is -at work against this woman at Sky Line Ranch—against her and all -those with her. Sheriff Selwood is not the only one who suspects her -of dark doings—and the other—knows. I am that other.” - -Nance gasped in the shadows. The flickering lamp, blowing in the -wind, had gone low. - -“You?” - -“Yes. That’s why I have been so much a mystery in this country—why I -have kept Sonny hidden in the cañon—why I have spent two years of my -life riding the back places of the West. I knew she was -somewhere—and I knew she was crooked. The men she has with her are -not cattle men—they are criminals, every one.” - -“Good gracious!” whispered the girl again. - -“And the reason I am not ready to run into her yet is this—she would -recognise me before I am ready, because she knew me once some six -years ago.” - -Nance Allison was, as her Mammy would say, “flabbergasted.” - -She was too astonished to speak. - -“I know a lot from the other end of her operations. I want to make -sure at this end. I want to get in touch with Sheriff Selwood—and I -want you to hold hard on your battle line, knowing that it can not -always be as it is now, that other forces are lined up with you—that -if all goes as it should—Cattle Kate will be caught in her own -trap—and I hope to the Lord it is soon.” - -“Why—why, this is a wonder to me!” said Nance, “a wonder and a light -in my darkness! I _felt_ you for good that first day I set eyes on -you in the cañon. Now I understand—you are the messenger whose feet -are beautiful on the hills, as the Bible says—who bears good -tidings! My faith has never faltered,” she went on earnestly, “I -knew always that the hand of God was before me, that my ways were -not hidden from His sight and that some way, some time, all would be -well with us. But sometimes it has been hard.” - -Fair sat thinking deeply. - -“Yes—Cattle Kate would make it hard—if she had a reason,” he said -and there was a note of bitterness in his low voice, “only God and I -know how hard.” - -“Has she——” Nance asked and hesitated, “has she made it hard for—for -you?” - -Somehow she dreaded his reply. - -It was long in coming, and then it was cryptic. - -“Vicariously. For one other she made it hard to the last bitter -dregs—to that unfashionable but sometimes existent thing, a broken -heart, and at last to death itself. To death in black disgrace.” - -Nance caught her breath in dismayed sympathy. - -“She is cold as stone,” went on the man, “brilliant, strong, and -ruthless. She sets herself a point and cleaves straight to it -regardless of who or what she tramples on the way.” - -“Yes—like wanting our land. She means to get it one way or another.” - -“Exactly. That rope you told me of was a bold stroke for it. Your -father was gone—your brother was the only other male of your family. -With him gone, too, you should have been easy.” - -“It was murder she meant,” said Nance, “no less. We’ve always known -that.” - -“And what about your father’s death? Tell me about that—if it is not -too painful.” - -“We don’t know much about it. Our Pappy was a mountaineer—born in -the Kentucky hills, lived in Missouri, a man who loved the outdoors. -He was a hunter and a woodsman. He was careful, never took chances. -That’s why we’ve never been reconciled to the accident that killed -him—he was found at the foot of Rainbow Cliff, as if he’d fallen -down it. And no one in this country has ever been known to reach the -top of that spine.” - -“Have you ever thought that perhaps he didn’t fall. That he might -have been put there as a way to cover a—crime?” - -Nance shook her head. - -“Every bone in his body was broken,” she said sadly, “he was as -loose as a bag of sand. He fell down Rainbow Cliff all right—but how -it happened, that’s what we’d love to know.” - -“And probably never will,” said Fair. - -“No.” - -They sat for a time in silence. - -The little wind blew in their faces, sweet with its fresh and -nameless suggestion of flowing water. Out in the shadows the big -black horse stood perfectly still, his peaceful breath scarce -lifting his sides. The Collie was silent, though his handsome head -was up, his sharp ears lifted above his ruff. The child in Fair’s -lap continued to sleep. - -It seemed to Nance Allison that the night had never been so calm -before, the stars so bright, the unspeakable majesty of the heavens -so apparent. She wondered how it was possible to feel so safe and at -peace in the face of this last disaster, to look to the future once -more with hope. - -The little smile was pulling at her lips again, her long blue eyes -were soft with hidden light. - -And then, out of the stillness and starlight, from somewhere across -the river, there came the clear crack of a high-power gun, the thud -of a ball in wood. With one sweep of his right arm Fair flung Nance -back upon the floor, himself and the child beside her. - -He slipped Sonny from his lap with a low word and rolled clear. -Quick as a cat he drew his body to the table, raised an arm above -its edge and swept the lamp to the floor, extinguishing it -instantly. - -Then he crawled back and the hands he laid upon the girl’s shoulders -were shaking. - -“Tell me,” he gritted, “tell me it did not hit you!” - -“I—can’t,” whispered Nance, “my left arm—it feels all full of -needles.” - -Fair slipped his fingers down along the firm young arm beneath its -faded sleeve and found it warm and wet. - -Sonny was awake but still as a little quail hid in the grass at its -mother’s warning whistle. - -There was the sound of a soft opening door beyond, and Mrs. -Allison’s voice, low and terror-filled, said, “Nance—girl——” - -“Don’t fret, Mammy,” she whispered back, “I’m all right—just a -scratch. Pin something on the window before you make a light.” - -Bud’s shuffle came round the table and he knelt beside her, feeling -for her hands. - -“Mammy!” he cried with restrained passion, “I’ll have my Pappy’s gun -now—or go with bare hands! You got to gimme it!” - -Nance got to her feet with Fair’s arm about her and pushed the door -shut. Then the mother struck a light and restored the lamp to the -table. In its yellow flare they peeled the sleeve from the girl’s -arm and found a shallow wound straight across, about three inches -above the elbow. - -For a long time Brand Fair looked at it. - -Then he raised sombre eyes to her face. - -“Eight inches to the right,” he said slowly, “and it would have been -your heart.” - -She nodded. - -“Cattle Kate means business now,” she said, “but—I—don’t think -she’ll get me.” - -“Not if I can get her first,” said Fair grimly. “Now let’s have some -hot water strong with salt.” - -Mrs. Allison set about preparing this, while the bitter tears of one -who had seen feud before, dripped down her weathered cheeks. - -The boy Bud stood by the table opening and closing his hands and -muttering under his quick breath—“Pappy’s gun—it’s good and -true-sighted. Not high-power—but I can hide and wait—close—close——” - -“If you’ll forgive a stranger, Mrs. Allison,” put in Fair, -straightening up and looking at the mother, “I’d say—give him his -father’s gun. And I’d say, Buddy—don’t go to pieces now after such a -brave and conservative fight. Be a defender—not a murderer.” - -The boy turned his dilated eyes to him, wetting his dry lips. - -In the long look that passed between them something seemed to break -down in Bud, the antagonism he had felt for Fair seemed to melt -away. The mysterious comradery of honest manhood fell upon them -both, and the man held out his hand. - -The boy took it and his eyes became sane. - -“We’ve got a big job cut out for us,” said Fair gravely, “and must -be in the right—at every point. We’ll dig out the nest of vipers at -Sky Line, but we’ll do the job cleanly. Now let’s get busy with our -first-aid.” - - - - - CHAPTER XIV - - LIGHT ON THE SHERIFF’S SHADOWS - - -From that night forth Fair came frequently to the homestead on -Nameless. It was a dull spot now and his advent was a saving grace. -The light of hope, the joy of labor and accomplishment, had in a -measure departed. There was little or nothing to do, less to look -forward to. For a little while Nance kept to the cabin as a matter -of precaution, but soon she began to pick up the odds and ends of -her pointless work—to mend the fence which had been cut, and to make -ready to harvest the crop of hay across the river. - -“Though I suppose it will be just that much work thrown away,” she -said, “for the stacks will burn some night like they did before.” - -“Take a chance,” counseled Fair, “maybe they won’t this time.” - -“You bet we’ll take the chance,” said the girl with a flare of her -old spirit, “we’ve never laid down yet.” - -But try as she would there was a dullness in her, a desire to stop -and rest a bit, and the hatred that was slowly growing in her -stirred anew each time she raised her eyes to the distant line of -Rainbow Cliff gleaming in the light like fairy stuff. - -“If it wasn’t for you now, Mr. Fair,” she said to him, “I think -I’d—almost—be ready to give up. You give me new courage—as Sheriff -Selwood did when he stepped behind me that day on McKane’s porch.” - -“No, you wouldn’t. It isn’t in you to give up. Perhaps -reinforcements do have their effect—but you’d never leave the line, -Nance.” - -The girl smiled. - -It was the first time he had used her given name and her heart -missed a beat, while the warm surge went through her again. - -“No—I know it—but sometimes I do feel—well, tired.” - -“You’ve had enough to make you so,” he said and laid his hand on -hers. At his infrequent touches Nance always felt a glow of -returning strength, as if once more she could work and fight for her -own. She counted it one of her secant blessings that Brand Fair had -come into her life at its darkest hour. - -Sheriff Selwood had a visitor. - -The prospector, John Smith, rode into his ranch yard and sat judging -him with shrewd eyes. - -“Sheriff,” he said, “I’ve a notion you and I could have a pleasant -and perhaps a profitable talk. Will you saddle a horse and ride out -with me a way?” - -“Sure,” said Price Selwood readily, and asked no questions. - -He went into his stable and soon came out leading the lean bay, -mounted and followed as the other turned away. - -“That’s a pretty good horse you ride, stranger,” he said, “I’ve -noticed it at Cordova a time or two.” - -“Yes,” returned Smith, “he has blood and bottom—also intelligence.” - -They rode for a while in silence. Then the stranger slouched -sidewise in his saddle and looked at Selwood. - -“I’m going to tell you several things, Sheriff,” he said, “and show -you some more. And I want to make a pact with you. It’s about Cattle -Kate Cathrew and the Allison family.” - -“Shoot,” said the sheriff succinctly. - -“I’m a stranger hereabouts, but I’m not a happen-so. I’ve hunted -Kate Cathrew for two years.” - -At that Price Selwood became alert in every nerve. - -“What?” he ejaculated. - -“On horseback, by train—from New York to this side the Rockies. Are -you willing to let me line up with you in this matter?” - -“I’m willing to do anything under Heaven that’s square to get that -bunch of rustlers—for so I’m convinced they are,” said Selwood, “and -to do it quick, for I’m afraid if we don’t, something will happen to -the folks on Nameless that can’t be mended.” - -“So am I. Miss Allison was shot in her doorway a few nights back.” - -“God!” cried the sheriff, “what’s that?” - -“Just a scratch on her arm—but it was meant for her heart. I was -there at the time. The ball came from across the river—a high-power -gun.” - -The sheriff groaned. - -“That’s it! The same old stuff—shoot from ambush—no -evidence—nothing. It makes a man wild! I’ve done all a man could do, -and I can’t put my finger on a thing.” - -“I’ve heard about the disappearing cattle,” said the other, “and -I’ve done a bit on my own hook. I may as well tell you now, that my -name is not Smith, and that I’ve been in Blue Stone Cañon for nearly -two months.” - -Selwood looked at him in astonishment. - -“No one knows it all, even about his own doorstep,” he said. “I -thought you were just passing through.” - -“If you will, I’d like you to ride up the cañon with me,” said Fair, -“to where the right wall falls away beyond the mouth of Little Blue. -It’s early and we can make it by noon, I think.” - -They fell silent for a while, threading the hills that rose in a -jumbled mass to the south of Nameless Valley, and after an hour or -so, reached the river. They crossed on the riffle where Nance was -accustomed to ford on her way to Blue Stone, and entered the mouth -of the great cut. - -“We’ll keep to the water as much as possible,” said Fair, “because -there are other eyes than ours here sometimes.” - -They passed the empty cave where Nance had found Sonny and Dirk and -followed the stream on up to the mouth of Little Blue. - -“From up in there,” said Fair, riding ahead, “I saw one of the -Cathrew riders—a man named Provine—driving a red steer up this way.” - -“Ah!” said the sheriff, adding to himself—“and so did Nance Allison. -These young folks seem to know each other pretty well.” - -“He went on north and disappeared. I followed next day and came upon -a mystery—some more of this water travel which leads nowhere.” - -“We’ve had a lot of that,” said Selwood bitterly, “it’s what has -baffled the whole country.” - -“Well—I’ll show you something,” said Fair, “that may set you -guessing.” - -The keen blue shadows were cold and the voices were murmuring in the -high escarpments. - -Through pools and over shale, where ever they could, they put their -horses, avoiding the sand, and presently, when the sunlight had -crept almost down to the floor of the cañon, they came out at the -spot where the right wall fell away abruptly showing the plains -stretched out like a dry brown floor, dotted with sparse bunch -grass. - -On the left the great precipice continued unbroken. - -Fair went on ahead, still keeping to the water, though both horses -were pretty well winded with the hard going it afforded, and at last -drew up to let Selwood come alongside. - -He sat still for a moment. - -“Listen a bit,” he said, “do you hear anything different from the -sounds of water and the murmuring of the big cut?” - -The sheriff listened sharply. - -“Yes,” he said presently, “I do. Sounds like wind.” - -“Exactly. Yet there isn’t any wind, more than the draft which always -draws down the cañon. Now look closely at the wall. Watch that clump -of willows yonder.” - -He pointed ahead and to the left where a dense green growth stood -alone against the rock face. - -Selwood looked and for a moment his face did not change. - -Then, suddenly, his mouth fell open, his eyes grew wide with -astonishment. - -“Great Scott!” he said, “_they’re blowing out from the wall_! -There’s wind behind them!” - -Fair moved forward and dismounted, leaving Diamond in the stream. -The sheriff followed. - -They stepped lightly across the strip of sand which lay between the -water and the willows and Fair turned to the right, circling the -clump. - -“Here,” he said, “that red steer and the man who drove it went into -the wall. I found their tracks that day. They’ve been obliterated by -the shifting sand since then.” - -He pushed aside a feathery branch and the sheriff at his shoulder -craned an incredulous head to look into what seemed the mouth of a -cave. - -“No—it’s not a cave,” said Fair at his surmise, “it’s a prehistoric -underground passage. It leads straight into the heart of Mystery -Ridge from this end, and it has an opening somewhere, attested to by -this current of wind. This mouth is just wide enough to admit one -steer at a time, one horse and rider—but—what more do you want?” - -“Great Scott!” cried Selwood again, “of all the impossible things! -And not a soul on Nameless knows about it!” - -“Wrong!” said Fair, “Kate Cathrew and her riders know. That open -plain yonder—it leads out to a town, doesn’t it? On the railroad?” - -“Marston—yes. A long way across.” - -“Water?” queried Fair. - -“Yes—at intervals. Springs. Do for driving—yes—not for range—too far -apart.” - -“Exactly,” said Fair. “Now, sheriff, find the other end of this -subterranean passage and I believe you’ll have solved the mystery of -the disappearing steers.” - -Price Selwood held out his hand. It was trembling. - -“I can’t tell you what I owe you for this information, Mr. ——?” - -“Smith—yes,” said Fair smiling. - -“Smith. It means more than I can say—to me.” - -“It means as much—or more—to me,” returned the other, “I’ve given -two years of my life to a still-hunt for Kate Cathrew. I’d give two -more to see her brought to justice.” - -“And we’ll get her!” said the sheriff grimly though with a lilt of -joy in his voice. “Oh, my Lord, just won’t we get her! We’ll follow -this hole straight to its——” - -“If I might suggest,” cut in Fair, “I’d say we’ll back out now—even -brush out our tracks—and begin a systematic picketing of the Cathrew -bunch. The cattle are fat on the ranges—it’ll soon be time to drive. -Don’t you think it likely that another big bunch might—disappear -down Nameless River?” - -“Say,” said Selwood smiling. “Mister, you just move in my house with -me! You can think faster and straighter than any man I ever met. -Let’s go right now.” - -Fair laughed and turned away, leading Diamond back down the cañon. - -“For the present,” he said, “I’ll keep to the background as I have -been doing. This woman would recognise me and be instantly alert for -trouble. Another thing, Sheriff—those men with her are not -cattlemen.” - -“Just what I’ve always said!” cried Selwood delightedly, “I knew -that long ago. There’s one or two who do pass muster—her foreman and -that black devil from Texas, Sud Provine. The rest are city stuff.” - -“They are, without exception, criminals who have been defended by -one of the ablest lawyers in New York and acquitted. They owe him a -lot—and he has something more on each one of them, so that they are -his henchmen in every instance. This man is Lawrence Arnold.” - -“Kate Cathrew’s partner! He owns half of Sky Line!” - -“Exactly. When he gets hold of a man he wants to use, he seems to -send him here. I have recognized three of these riders already, -though none of them knew me.” - -“Excuse me, mister,” said Selwood, “but how do you happen to know so -much?” - -“That question is your right, and I will answer it. Kate Cathrew was -a New York woman—I knew her there some six years ago. She was clever -then—and unscrupulous, always playing for her own advancement. It -was along that line that she did the deed for which I have hunted -her down—and found her at last. What deed that was I am not ready to -say, nor to whom it was done. It must suffice for the present to -tell you that it ruined one life and bade fair to ruin another until -I stepped in to take a hand. These two lives were very near my -own—and for their sake I have become a wanderer, a homeless tramp, -searching the lone places of the West to find this woman and make -her pay—to bring her to justice. I watched Lawrence Arnold for three -years before I started and I knew he was in touch with her, that -between them some way they were making money, but I could never get -track of her through him. He was too sharp for me. I have visited -every cattle ranch owned by a woman in the whole United States, it -seems to me. I found seven in Texas, two in Montana, and more in -Idaho. I have ridden this little chap thousands of miles, shipped -him with me by rail thousands more. I knew it was cattle stuff from -some of Arnold’s deals, but where they came from has been a -mystery—until two months ago. Now you know what I am and why I’m on -Cattle Kate’s trail like a nemesis. I think, if we work together, -we’ll land her soon—and land her hard and fast where she belongs.” - -“Amen to that,” said Selwood fervently. - - * * * * * - -The summer drowsed along on Nameless, sweet with sun and the little -winds that stirred the pine tops, green with verdure and starred -with wild flowers. The lonesome world of the jumbled hills was fair -as Paradise, wistful with silence, mysterious with its suggestion of -eternal waiting. - -To Nance Allison, sitting listlessly on her doorstep, it seemed -strangely empty. There was nothing to do, now that the heavy labor -of the haying was over. She watched her three big stacks with sombre -eyes, expecting each morning to find them destroyed, but nothing -happened to them. - -Bud carried his father’s rifle now and day after day he went -morosely into the hills after venison. - -“Got to hang up enough meat for winter,” he told Nance when she -looked at him with troubled eyes. - -“Got to remember that Commandment which says ‘Thou shalt not kill,’” -she answered. - -“Brand said to carry the gun.” - -“Brand said ‘defend’—not ‘murder.’ Hold hard, Bud. We’ve kept clean -so far.” - -“Yes—and what’ve we got? A grave—and _this_.” - -He shrugged his sagging shoulder. - -Quick tears came in Nance’s eyes and she laid a hand upon it with -infinite tenderness. - -“I know,” she said, “but somehow I still have faith. We’ll come out -free some day.” - -“Perhaps—free like our Pappy.” - -“God forbid!” said the girl with trembling lips. - - - - - CHAPTER XV - - THE FLANGE IN RAINBOW CLIFF - - -It was getting along into August. In every cup and hollow of the -Deep Heart hills the forage was deep and plentiful. Cattle, -scattered through the broken country, waxed sleek and fat. They had -nothing to do but fill their paunches in the sunlit glades and chew -their cuds on the shadowed slopes. - -Bossick, riding his range one day, came upon Big Basford and Sud -Provine ambling down toward the upper reaches of Nameless. - -Their horses were tired, giving evidence of hard going, and the -cattleman stopped and looked at them with hostile eyes. - -“Pretty far off your stamping ground, ain’t you?” he asked. - -Provine grinned. - -He was a slow-moving individual with a bad black eye and a -reputation with the gun that always rode his thigh, though he had -been mild enough on Nameless. It was the little wimple of trailing -whispers which had come into the country behind him that had put the -brand upon him. - -“Are so,” he answered insolently, “but hit’s free range land at -that, ain’t it?” - -“In theory, yes,” said Bossick, “but it’s about time practice -changed matters. I’m about fed up on theory—and so are a few others -in this man’s country. I’d take it well if you and all your outfit -stayed on the south side of Mystery where you belong. Your stock -don’t range this far in the Upper Country.” - -“Is that so,” drawled the other, “an’ who says so?” - -“I do,” said Bossick quietly, “and I’m only giving you a warning, -Provine, which you’d better heed. You can take the word to Kate -Cathrew, too. Her high-handed methods don’t set any too well with -us—and we don’t care who knows it.” - -“To hell with you and your warnings!” flared Big Basford, his ugly -temper rising. “Sky Line’s too strong for any damned bunch of -backwoods buckaroos, an’ don’t you forget it! We’re——” - -“Shut up!” snapped Provine, and rode away. - -“Selwood’s right,” mused Bossick as he looked after them, “they’re a -precious lot of cut-throats.” - -At Sky Line Ranch there was activity. - -Kate Cathrew was gathering beef. - -Riders were coming in daily with little bunches of cattle, all in -good condition, which they herded into the corrals. - -Day and night the air was resonant with the endless bawling. - -It was a little early for the drive—but then Cattle Kate was always -early. And this year she had a particular reason for precipitancy. -One of those New York letters had said, “——would like to come a -little sooner, if possible, so let’s clean up promptly.” - -The word of those letters was law to her. If they had said “ship” in -December, she would have tried to do so. - -Now she was out on Bluefire from dawn to dark herself, and there was -little or nothing escaped her eyes. She knew to a nicety how many -yearlings were on the slopes of Mystery, the number of weaning -calves, the steers that were ready for shipping and those that were -not. - -When Provine carried her Bossick’s message verbatim the red flush of -anger rose in her face again and she struck the stallion a vicious -cut with her quirt. - -Bluefire rose on his hind legs, pawing, and shook his head in rage, -the wild blood struggling with the tame in him. - -“If Bossick ever speaks to you again,” said Kate, “you tell him to -go to hell, and that Kate Cathrew said so.” - -“I did,” said Basford, grinning, “and Sud objected.” - -“Where’s your allegiance to Sky Line?” she asked Provine instantly, -“must Basford show you loyalty?” - -“I can show him discretion,” said Provine, evenly, “an’ hit don’t -take much brains to see that. Do you _want_ these ranchers t’ begin -ridin’ hard on us—nights, for instance, an’ _now_?” - -Kate frowned and tapped her boot. - -“The devil his due,” she said presently, “you’re right, Provine,” -and turned away. - -The corrals were choked with cattle. - -Sky Line was ready for its drive. - -On the last night before the start there was a peculiar tenseness in -everything about the busy place. Kate Cathrew was everywhere. She -saw what horses were ready for use, spoke sharply with every rider -to make sure he knew what he was to do, and told Rod Stone once more -to get out of the kitchen. - -The boy laughed, but Minnie Pine glanced after her with smouldering -eyes. - -“She’s a devil—the Boss,” she told Josefa, “I hate her.” - -After the early supper Caldwell, Provine, Basford and four others, -saddled fresh horses and rode away. - -It was dark of the moon—as it was always when Sky Line gathered -beef—a soft windy dark, ideal for the concealment of riders, the -disguising of sounds. - -They dropped down the mountain at an angle, heading northwest to -circle the end of Mystery, and they followed no trail. - -They were all armed and all wore dark clothing. - -The only point of light about them was the grey horse which Provine -rode. - -Kate Cathrew had remonstrated about that horse, but the Texan who -feared neither man, beast or devil, had slapped its rump -affectionately and refused to ride any other. - -“If that damned nosey sheriff hits my trail on his long-legged bay I -want old Silvertip under me,” he had said, “I don’t aim to decorate -no records for him.” - -“Are you saying you won’t obey me?” the boss had asked in a voice of -ice. - -“Yes, ma’am, in this particular instance.” - -“Do you know Lawrence Arnold will soon be here?” - -“Well?” - -“You know what he can do to you?” - -“Shore. But—I’ll risk it—for Silvertip.” - -So he had deliberately mounted and the woman was thankful that none -of the other riders had heard the insubordination. - -Provine was invaluable, and she held her peace. - -Caldwell, leading, kept well up on the slope above the river and -after two hours’ hard going they were well around the northwest end -of Mystery Ridge which flared like a lady’s old-fashioned skirt, and -heading down into the glades that broke the jumbled ridges of the -Upper Country. - -Here Bossick, a rich man, ran his cattle and had his holding. - -His ranch lay well back from the river and up, but his stock ranged -down. That was why it had been easy prey for the mysterious rustlers -of Nameless River. - -These men did not talk. - -They rode with a purpose and they were alert to every sound, their -nerves were taut as fiddle strings. - -Where the slanting glades came down toward the river they dropped to -the level and presently rode up along a smooth green floor that led -directly toward Bossick’s place, though a sharp spine cut it off at -the head. The outlet from the ranch to the river lay over this ridge -and parallel to it. - -As they trotted up the glade the little wind that drew down from the -cañon at its head brought the scent of cattle, and presently they -came upon a horse and rider standing like a statue in the shadows. - -Caldwell drew rein sharply. - -“Dickson?” he asked in a low voice. - -“O. K.” came the answer as the other moved forward to join them. - -“Seventy-one head,” he said quietly, “and all ready.” - -“Then let’s get busy,” said the foreman, “and get out of here.” - -With pre-arranged and concerted action the seven men divided and -circled the herd which was bedded and quiet. On the further edge -they were joined by another shadowy rider, and with silence and -dispatch they got the cattle up and moving. - -They made little noise, drifting down the level floor of the glade -in a close-packed bunch. At its mouth they headed south along the -shore of the river and followed along the stream for a matter of -several miles. Where the western end of Mystery turned, Nameless -curved and went down along the ridge’s foot in a wide and placid -flow. It was here that the drivers forced the cattle to the water -and kept them in it, riding in a string along the edge. This was -particular work and took finesse and dispatch. - -The bewildered stock tried at first to come out, but everywhere -along the shore were met with the crack of the long whips, the -resistance of the string of horsemen, so that presently, following -the several dominant steers which traveled in the lead, the whole -herd splashed and floundered along the sandy bottom of the river, -knee deep in water. - -This was the trick which had baffled cattleland, and it was both -easy and clever, comparatively. - -And so Bossick’s seventy-one head of steers were disappearing and -there was none to see. - -That is, at this stage of the proceedings. - -There _was_ one to see—one who had spent many weary weeks of night -riding, of patient watching which had seemed likely to be -unrewarded—Sheriff Price Selwood sitting high on the slope above -Kate Cathrew’s trail, as he had so often, doggedly following his -“hunch” and the prospector John Smith’s discovery. - -Since that ride up Blue Stone Cañon he had taken turns with Smith in -picketing Cattle Kate’s outfit, but nothing untoward had taken -place. - -Now he sat in tedious silence, listening to the night sounds, -unaware that any one was out from Sky Line, since Caldwell and his -companions had dropped diagonally down the slope in their going, -passing far above him. - -For an hour he sat, slouching sidewise in his saddle, his hat pulled -over his eyes. The bay horse stood in hip-dropped rest, drowsing -comfortably. - -It was well after midnight, judging by the stars in the dark sky, -when Selwood suddenly held the breath he was drawing into his lungs. - -He had heard a cattle-brute bawl. - -For a moment he was still as death. - -Then he straightened up, every nerve taut. - -He heard the sounds of cattle, the crack of whips, the unmistakable -commotion of moving bodies. As it all came nearer below him -he caught the swish and splash of water, and knew he was at -last witnessing a raid of rustlers, one of the mysterious -“disappearances” which had puzzled all the Deep Heart country for so -long. - -He wished fervently that Smith were with him—that Bossick and Jermyn -and all the rest were there. - -His heart was beating hard and to save his life he could not help -the excitement which took hold upon him. - -And presently he heard, directly beneath him where Kate Cathrew’s -trail crossed Nameless, the trample and crack of a myriad hoofs -taking to the rocky slope. The riders were turning the steers up -toward Sky Line Ranch! - -But what could they do with them there? - -Where could they hide them? - -He had searched every foot of the home place himself that day for -the two of Old Man Conlan, and had found not so much as a sheltered -gulch, a hidden pocket. - -What, then, could Cattle Kate do with such a bunch as was coming up -her trail now? - -Sheriff Selwood had food for thought but little time to use it. He -had only time for decision, and for the action which was to follow -swiftly on that decision. - -As the cattle came up the slope, pushed by the many horsemen who -completely encircled them, they left a broad trail, their tracks all -going upward—all this passed through his racing mind. - -What was to prevent him or any one else from riding straight up to -their destination by broad daylight? - -And then on the heels of this question came like a flash of light on -a dark curtain that old _coincidence in time_! - -When that ninety head had vanished Kate Cathrew had been driving -down—driving _down_ from Sky Line—three hundred head, head of her -own stock, all open and above board, properly branded clear and -fair! - -Three hundred head of steers whose moiling hoofs, going down, would -trample out all trace of ninety going up! - -The sheriff’s eyes were gleaming in the dark, his lips were a tight -line of determination. - -He was beginning to get hold of the mystery with a vengeance. - -He thought of the windy passage that opened into Blue Stone Cañon. -If he could only find its head he would, as Smith had said, have -solved the problem. And unless he missed his guess by a thousand -miles, those steers streaming past him at the moment were headed for -it now! - -Here was the chance for which he had waited, for which he had ridden -the hills for months, for which he had endured the contempt and the -insinuations of the cattlemen. - -Here was the chance to nail her crimes on Cattle Kate Cathrew, to -make the “killing” of his years of failure in office—and Sheriff -Price Selwood, brave man and honest officer of the law, took his -life in his hand again and fell in beside the herd. - -Dark, quiet, shadowy—he was a rider among the riders, to all intents -and purposes one of Kate Cathrew’s men—and he was helping to drive -Bossick’s steers up to the foot of Rainbow Cliff! - -From the few low-toned shouts and oaths he was able to identify the -two men nearest him as Sud Provine and Caldwell, the foreman. - -He thanked his stars for his own dark horse, his inconspicuous -clothing. - -It was hard going up the steep slants of Mystery Ridge, and kept -every one busy to keep the cattle, unaccustomed to night driving and -in strange country, headed in the right direction and all together. - -But they did the trick like veterans and after a long, hard drive, -Selwood saw the rimrock of Rainbow Cliff against the stars. - -The herd was headed straight for the face of the cliff, and he -expected soon to see the riders swing them east toward the corrals -of Sky Line, but they did not do so. When the foremost steers were -close under the wall Caldwell rode near and called to him, thinking -him one of his men: - -“Get around to the right,” he said, “and keep close to Sud, Bill. -I’ll lead in myself. Take it slow. Don’t want ’em to jam in the -neck. When the first ones start behind th’ Flange let ’em dribble in -on their own time. All ready?” - -The last two words were a high call addressed to all the men. From -all sides of the herd, come to a full stop now, came replies and -Selwood saw Caldwell ride away around to the right. - -Turning his horse the sheriff followed promptly. - -He was tense as a wire, alert, dreading discovery every moment, yet -filled with an excitement which sent the blood pounding in his ears. - -As he neared the face of the precipice on the right, he saw Provine -sitting on his horse, saw Caldwell circle in to the wall and cutting -in before the massed cattle, go straight along its length. The faint -starlight was just sufficient to show up bulk and movement, not -detail. He heard the foreman begin to call “Coee—coo-ee—coo-ee”—and -the next moment he could not believe his eyes, for horse and rider -melted headfirst into the face of Rainbow Cliff, as a knife slices -into a surface and disappeared! Caldwell’s voice came from the heart -of the wall, far away and muffled, calling “Coo-ee—coo-ee”—Provine -edged in against the steers, shouting, he followed suit, as to -movement, though he did not speak, and the dark blot of the mass -began to flow into the solid rock of the spine that crowned Mystery -Ridge! - -Sheriff Selwood had solved the mystery of the disappearing -steers—knew to a certainty who were the rustlers of Nameless -River—and he could not get away with his knowledge quickly enough. - -Therefore he reined his horse away to the left, dropped back along -the herd, edged off a bit—a bit more—sidled into a shadow—slipped -behind the pine that made it—and putting the bay to a sharp walk, -went down the mountain. - -As the sounds behind him lessened he drew a good breath and struck a -spur to his horse’s flank. - -And right then, when there was most need, the good bay who had -served him so long and faithfully, betrayed him. - -He threw up his head, flung around toward the strange horses he was -leaving, and neighed—a sharp, shrill sound that carried up the slope -like a bugle. - -At the mouth of the Flange Big Basford stopped. - -His own mount answered. - -Once more came that challenge from below and Sud Provine came back -out of the hidden passage on the jump. - -“God damn!” he shouted, “that ain’t a Sky Line horse! Boys—we’re -caught! Come quick!” - -Selwood, far down the trail, knew with a surge of rage that the game -was up and that he was in for it. He knew in the same second, -however, that his own horse was fresh, while those others were not. - -He clapped down hard with both spurs, got a good grip on his old -gun, and sailed down the steep trail—“hell bent for election,” as he -thought grimly. - -He had a fair start and meant to make the most of it. - -And he knew his horse. - -Knew that this long-legged bay was the best horse in the country, -save and except Sud Provine’s grey gelding with the filed shoe, and -perhaps the rangy black which his new friend Smith rode. - -He could have wished that the grey was not behind him. - -It was dangerous work taking the slope of Mystery at a run, but -there was danger behind and he chose the lesser evil. - -As if to make up for its defection the lean bay stretched and -doubled like a greyhound and Selwood leaned low on its neck as best -he could for the pitch—for he was listening for lead. - -He knew he was out of six-gun range, but he knew also that Sud -Provine carried a rifle always on his saddle. - -The roar of horses running under difficulty—leaping, stiff-legged, -sliding here and there—came down like an avalanche of sound, but -there were no voices mingled with it. The Sky Line men were riding -in a silence so grim that it sent a chill to Selwood’s heart. They -meant death—and were avid for it. - -He knew he was holding his own in the breakneck race, and presently -it seemed he was gaining slightly. He came as near to praying as one -of his ilk could do, that the good bay horse might keep its feet, -for a fall now would be as fatal as capture. - -The trees sailed by against the stars, rushing up from the dim -darkness below to disappear into it above, and the wind sang in his -ears like a harp. - -It seemed incredible that the tediously climbed slope could be so -quickly descended—for he saw the thickening shadows of the -mountain’s foot racing up toward him, the pale gleam of water beyond -which meant the river. And then he heard what he had been -dreading—the snap of a rifle, the whine of a ball. Sky Line, giving -up capture, was trying for destruction. - -It was Provine he felt sure who held the gun. - -He dug in his spurs cruelly and the bay responded with a surge of -speed which seemed certain death, but kept its feet miraculously. -Once more came the snap and whine—again—and again—and again—as fast -as the man behind it could pump the rifle. - -And then, just as the bay struck the waters of Nameless with a leap -and a roar, it seemed to Selwood that the heavens opened up, that -all the fire in the universe flamed in his brain. - -He swung far out to the left, a terrible lever of weight to the -gallant animal floundering beneath him, and made the supreme -physical effort of his life to get back into his saddle. His fingers -dug into the wet mane like talons, he clawed desperately with his -right heel and felt the spur hook. - -For what reason he could not have said, he opened his mouth and -screamed—a hoarse, wild sound, like the soul’s farewell to its -flesh. Perhaps he thought it was. - -Sud Provine, sitting his shivering horse where he had drawn it to a -sliding stop on the trail above, deliberately shoved his gun into -its saddle-straps. - -“I guess that’s th’ last of you, my buckko,” he gritted, “that’s -your last ride, damn you! See how you like th’ water.” - -And he turned back up the slope. - -At dawn McKane, who slept in the store at Cordova, heard something -untoward. It was a rapping that seemed to come from the floor of the -porch outside—an odd, irregular stroke, as if the hand that made it -was uncertain. - -He rose, drew on his pants and hooking his suspenders over his -shoulders as he went, opened the front door. - -A bay horse, gaunt and bedraggled, stood at the porch’s -shoulder-high edge, and hanging half out of its saddle, held only by -the right spur still caught in the hair cinch and one arm around the -pommel, was the sheriff. - -His ghastly face was red with blood from the long wound which had -split his scalp from just above the left ear across the temple to -the end of the eyebrow. - -The trader leaped forward, jumped to the ground and caught him in -his arms. - -“My good God, Price!” he cried, “say you ain’t dead! You ain’t bad -hurt—Oh, my God!” - -Selwood looked at him with eyes that seemed dull as ashes. - -“——solved—mystery——” he said thickly. “——rustlers—raid—caught with -the goods—they are——” - -The thick voice failed and Sheriff Price Selwood slumped down -heavily on the shoulder of his erstwhile friend. - -It was to be long before he would finish his cryptic sentence. - - - - - CHAPTER XVI - - THE ANCIENT MIRACLE - - -News in the mountains travels fast, by mysterious ways, and in -places where it seems impossible. Also it has marvelous powers of -mutation. What may start out far down on Little Beaver Dam as an -innocent prank, is liable to reach the Upper Sweet Water as a -full-fledged scandal. - -So it was on Nameless that drowsy day in August. - -Nance Allison was busy about her work in the scoured kitchen, with -Sonny Fair following her like a small-sized shadow. - -In the dim regions beyond Mrs. Allison was in bed with a “sick -headache.” The balls of the carpet-rags had been sadly put away, all -finished and ready for the loom, but farther away from that desired -goal than ever. It seemed to Nance that that carpet was the last -straw, the ridiculous small pressure that had all but snapped the -thread of her control. Whenever she thought of Kate Cathrew she -thought not of her Pappy, not of Bud with his sagging shoulder, not -of her burned stacks and her field of growing corn, but of the bare -floors of her poor home. - -There was a frown between her golden brows these days, a grim set to -her lips, and she spent many hours on her knees beside her bed -praying for guidance, for strength to keep to her narrow way. But -the “stirrings” that she felt inside her in the spring had become a -seething turmoil of passion, hard to hold. - -“I’m like the patriarchs of old,” she thought to herself, “filled -with righteous wrath. If it wasn’t that I have the light of the New -Testament I’m afraid I’d go forth and slay my enemies, or try to.” - -“What you whimpering about, Nance? Tell me, too,” said the child -hugging her knees and looking adoringly up with his soft brown eyes. - -“My gracious! Was I whimpering, Sonny?” she asked aghast, “I must be -getting pretty far gone, as Brand says. Nance was thinking, that’s -all—thinking about bad things that make her heart ache.” - -“Our enemies?” he asked quaintly. - -She nodded. - -“Yes—they’re ours, all right. Yours and Brand’s and mine.” - -There was a vague comfort in this association, in the common cause -that seemed to bind her and hers to Brand and Sonny Fair. - -Brand and Sonny Fair—her thoughts went off on the tangent which -those two names always started. - -It was part of the trouble which made the frown habitual—the frown, -so alien to the sweet and open face of this girl. - -Always there was under the surface of her mind the running -question—What was Brand Fair to Sonny? And always there lurked in -the dim background the word—Father. Was it true? Was the child his -son? And if it was true—where and who was the mother? - -A deep and terrible ache seemed to take her very bones at this -thought—a misery which she could not understand. - -She shook herself and sighed and tried to smile down at the boy, but -the effort was a failure. - -“Nance,” he asked soberly, “don’t you love me any more?” - -The girl dropped on her knees and gathered him to her breast in a -fierce gesture. - -“Love you? Honey child, Nance loves every inch of your little body! -She loves you so well she’s scared to death Brand will come along -some day and want to take you away again!” - -She sat back on her heels and smiled at him, this time successfully. -If there was one spot of light in the darkness of her troubles it -was the child. Always his pleading eyes, his shy caresses could -lighten the load. - -And so it was that presently she fell to laughing in her old -light-hearted way, sitting back on her heels on the clean white -floor and rolling the child this way and that. - -Screams of delight from Sonny punctuated the strokes of his bare -feet as he kicked in the hysterical ecstasy of Nance’s fingers -“creep-mous”-ing up his little ribs. - -They did not see Bud standing in the door, so absorbed in their game -were they, until he moved and his shadow fell across them. - -Nance turned her laughing face up to him—and stared with the -laughter set upon it. - -The boy was white as milk, his eyes black with terrible portent. - -“Bud,” she cried, “what’s up? What——” - -“The rustlers were out last night,” he said slowly with a strange -hesitation—“I met Old Man Conlan going down to Cordova—a man was -shot—they think it is—the prospector—Smith.” - -For a moment Nance sat still on her heels, her mouth open, the -sickly lines of laughter still around it. - -Then she put out a hand that was beginning to shake—like an aged -hand with palsy. - -“Smith?” she gasped, “that’s—Brand Fair! Oh—oh—dear Lord—_Brand -Fair_!” - -For the first time in her life the bright sunlight faded out and -Nance Allison, who had fought so long and hard against tremendous -odds,—who had held her battle line and borne all things with the -courage of a strong man swayed back upon the floor. - -Bud sprang forward to lift her up, but already the weakness was -passing and she put him aside, getting to her feet. - -She forgot the child at her knee. - -“His enemies——” she was muttering to herself, “and mine—they got -him—at last—just as they tried to get me—and Jehoshaphat rose and -went against his enemies—and the Lord was with him—I—I—Bud, give me -that gun.” - -She took the rifle out of his hands with a savage motion and went -from the cabin, swaying like a drunkard. - -At the corner of the stable she came face to face with Fair, who was -just coming up from the river on Diamond. - -She stopped and stared at him like one in a daze. - -“You?” she said presently. “You—Brand?” - -The man saw at once that there was something gravely wrong and -dismounted quickly. - -He came forward and laid a hand on hers where it grasped the weapon. - -“Sure—my dear,” he said carefully, “don’t look so, Nance—I’m all -right. Let me have this,” and took the gun away. - -He put his right arm gently around her and looked over her head at -her brother. - -“Tell me,” his eyes commanded. - -“I just told her what I heard this morning,” said Bud, “that a man -was shot by rustlers and that it was Smith—you. She said something -about one of the Bible men who went out and slew his enemies—and she -was starting for Sky Line, I think.” - -There was no need to ask more, for Nance had covered her face with -her shaking hands and bending forward on Fair’s breast was weeping -terribly. - -The man drew her close and held her, and the dark eyes that gazed -down at her shining head with its neat braids, were grave and very -tender. - -At last he said quietly, “It was our friend, Sheriff Selwood, but he -is not dead. He’s at his ranch, but he cannot talk—and no one knows -who shot him. Sky Line drove down this morning—all regular and -humdrum. McKane says Selwood knows—that he tried to tell him who the -rustlers of Nameless are, but that he could not. When he comes round -there’ll be something doing in this neck of the woods, or I miss my -guess. Come, Nance—aren’t you going to invite me to dinner? I’ve got -four prime grey squirrels in my saddle-bags, and my canteen’s full -of honey—found a bee tree down the river.” - -And with the gentle tact of deep understanding and something more, -Fair drew Nance back from the edge of tragedy to the safe ground of -the commonplace. - -She straightened up, wiped her hands down across her cheeks and -looked at him with eyes in which the tears still glistened. - -“I thought,” she said unsteadily, “that Kate Cathrew had had you -shot.” - -“She’ll have to get up earlier than I do if she pulls that trick,” -he laughed, “I’ve been too long on guard.” - - * * * * * - -Two days later Nameless was ringing with the news of the raid and -Bossick was grim and silent. - -When the Sky Line riders came back from their drive they rattled -into Cordova for the mail and stood on the porch. - -“Still watchin’ your range?” queried Provine insolently as he swung -out of his saddle and without a word the rancher leaped for him. He -caught him by the neck and they both fell under Silvertip’s feet. -The horse sprang away and in a second the two men were trying to -kill each other with all the strength there was in them. - -“You damned dirty thief!” gritted Bossick, “if the law won’t get you -I’ll take a hand!” - -He was a heavy man, stocky and square, with tremendous thews, but -the other was the wiry type and younger, so that they were not so -unevenly matched, and it bade fair to be a lively affray. - -But Big Basford, temper flaming as usual, pulled his gun from the -holster and flung it down in line. - -“Roll over, Sud!” he shouted, “I’ll fix him!” - -Provine endeavored to roll away from Bossick, but the rancher held -him, pounding him the while with all the fury of outraged right, and -the blue gun-muzzle in Basford’s hand traveled with their -convolutions, seeking a chance to kill his man. - -The huge unkempt body leaned down from its saddle, the red eyes -glittered and that traveling muzzle stretched closer to the men on -the ground. It looked like certain death for Bossick, when there -came the sudden crack of a gun from the doorway, and the weapon -dropped from Basford’s broken hand. The horse he was riding screamed -and reared with a red ribbon spurting from its breast where the -glancing ball had seared it. - -“I’m sorry to hurt the horse,” said Smith the prospector, watching -the group with narrow dark eyes above the steady barrel, “but I’m -not so particular with assassins. We’ll see fair play.” - -And they did see fair play, a tense and silent gathering the Sky -Line men sitting their horses on the one side, McKane, Smith, the -bearded man from the Upper Country who had witnessed another fight -on the same spot, and several more, on the other. - -It was stone-hard fair play without quarter, and when it was over -Bossick rose, a bloody and disheveled figure, and glared at the -riders. - -“Take him home,” he said, “to your rustlers’ nest, you —— —— ——!” - -“That’s fighting talk, Bossick,” said Caldwell in a thin voice, “but -this ain’t th’ time or place.” - -“You’re damn right, it ain’t!” said Bossick, “not when there’s even -numbers and no odds for you! You’ll wait for dark and one man -alone—like Price Selwood was.” - -Sud Provine, getting dizzily to his feet, shot a lightning glance at -the speaker. His pulped face lost a shade of color. No one spoke and -Bossick went on. - -“When Selwood comes round I’m layin’ there’s goin’ to be such a -stir-up as this country never saw—and don’t you forget it!” - -“Comes round?” said Caldwell, as if the words were jerked from him -against his will. - -“Yes—comes round so he can talk—can tell what he knows of the -rustlers of Nameless and who was the dirty skunk that shot him in -the back. There’s a good coil rope inside this store that’s going to -make history for the Deep Heart cattle country.” - -“Hell!” said Caldwell, and laughed in a high thin treble as he -pulled his horse around, “you’re amusin’, Bossick.” - -“Yes,” snapped Bossick balefully, “your whole bunch seems quite -hilarious. Now, get out of Cordova.” - -Without another word being passed on either side the Sky Line men -rode out in a compact bunch, Provine and Basford nursing their -hurts, the rest silent. - -Bossick turned to the stranger. - -“I want to thank you, Mister,” he said, “for being here.” - -“It was a very great pleasure,” said Brand Fair, alias Smith. “I -thought perhaps I’d forgotten how to shoot.” - -With that he mounted Diamond and rode away, but two hours later he -was waiting for Bossick on his home trail, where he intercepted him. - -“Mr. Bossick,” he said, “I think you’re solid, so I take this -liberty. I want to tell you that Sheriff Selwood and myself have -picketed Sky Line for some weeks, alternately—so it _was_ a Cathrew -man who shot him, beyond question. Now let’s talk.” - -A little later Bossick knew all that Brand and the sheriff knew -concerning the hidden passage that opened into Blue Stone, and he -was softly profane with amazement. - -“There’s Old Man Conlan,” he told Fair, “and Jermyn and Reston -farther up, who can be depended on. We’ll go to them at once.” - -“I didn’t trust McKane,” said Fair, “do you?” - -“In one way he’s all right—in another, no. He’s crazy over Cattle -Kate Cathrew and would certainly serve her if possible. It’s best he -doesn’t know any more than he does. You were wise to come out here -to talk.” - -Fair laughed. - -“I’ve set a guard around the sheriff’s house,” he said, “put six of -his cowboys on double shift. I knew they would find out that he is -still alive and might try to finish the job—so he would never -talk—Sky Line, I mean. And now, Mr. Bossick, I think we’d better go -talk to Jermyn and the rest. I’m only sorry Selwood isn’t able to be -with us.” - - * * * * * - -“This is a pretty bunch to bring back to me, Caldwell,” said Kate -Cathrew, tapping her foot with a whip, “one man disabled and another -pounded into jelly. Who’s this damn stranger who’s so handy with his -gun?” - -“Name’s Smith,” said the foreman sulkily, “and I’d better tell you -right now, that Selwood isn’t dead. He’s alive and they’re waiting -for him to come round so he can—talk.” - -Cattle Kate’s face flamed red. - -“_Not dead?_ Bring Provine here!” - -But she would not wait as was her wont when summoning her men. She -whirled and strode along the veranda to meet Provine who came in no -good grace. - -“I’ve a notion to kill you on the spot!” she cried furiously, “you -fool bungler! Of all the crazy, wild, impossible things! Why didn’t -you _get_ that man? The one person in the world who knew of The -Flange and Rainbow’s Pot behind! You let him get away!” - -“Done my best,” said the man evilly, “an’ to hell with those who -don’t like it.” - -Quick as a flash the woman raised her whip and struck him. - -With a roar he returned the blow, and Big Basford who had followed, -leaped for him, clawing with his good hand, but Caldwell knocked -Provine down instead. - -“Take him away,” said Kate Cathrew coldly, her hand at her cheek, -“Lawrence Arnold will be here soon. I’ll let him deal with this.” - - * * * * * - -It was night again and the stars were hung like lanterns in the sky. -The little wind was coming up the river, the little soft wind that -Nance Allison loved. - -Once more she sat in the doorway with Brand Fair beside her. There -was no light on the table this time, so that she could not see his -face with its quiet dark eyes, its thick hair above and the straight -line of his lips with their gentle smile. But the feel of his arm -against her own as he held the sleeping child, set up that nameless -longing in her, the glowing glory of unknown joy which had become of -late a sadness. - -She was filled with vague sorrows and premonitions, as if, having -found the priceless possession of this man’s companionship, she was -about to lose it. - -It was not death wholly that she feared, but a more subtle thing, an -inhibition of the spirit, a gulf that seemed to lie all shadowy -between them—a dark, mysterious gulf wherein the imperious face of -Kate Cathrew swirled amid the shadows. - -But presently Fair spoke and she shook off her forebodings. - -“Nance,” he said softly, so low that his deep voice was scarce more -than a whisper, “I have wanted to tell you more of my life and -Sonny’s for a long time, but somehow it seemed too bad to add -another’s burdens to those which you already bear, even though -vicariously. However, the time seems nearly ripe for me to reap the -reward, one way or another, of those years of effort and hardship -which I have spent running Kate Cathrew to earth. What this reward -will be I don’t know, of course. No one can foretell. The men of Sky -Line are a hard bunch, criminals and worse. They’ll never be dug out -of that nest of theirs without a fight and a hard one. Somebody’s -going to be killed, that’s certain!” - -He heard the girl catch her breath in a little gasp, and shifting -Sonny, he put his arm around her. - -“However it does come out, there’s one thing I want to tell you, a -package I want to give you for safekeeping. Will you listen, Nance?” - -The big girl nodded dumbly. Her heart was throbbing painfully, the -breath labored in her lungs. A trembling set up along her muscles, -and the stars seemed to dance on the black velvet of the sky. - -She was more conscious of that arm on her shoulder than she had ever -been of anything in all her life. Its magnetic touch thrilled her to -her fingertips. - -Gently Fair leaned down until his face was against her cheek, -tightened his clasp. - -“I have been all over this land of ours,” he said presently, “and in -some several others. I have met many women—of many classes. I have -been no saint and no great sinner. But always in my secret heart -there has been a place all swept and garnished—and empty, Nance. - -“That place—a holy spot, a shrine, if you will—most men would know -what I mean—has been waiting—empty—all my life—because I never found -the woman who fitted it. For its light there was no face to shine -on, for its cool spaces no eyes to look down, for its marble floors -no white feet to adore. Can you see what I mean, Nance, dear? It was -the inner core of my heart, the veritable altar of my soul without a -priestess. - -“Since the day in Blue Stone Cañon when I first beheld you rocking -the child in your lap—this secret place has been gloriously full. -Nance—Nance—I have been like a worshipper without, laying my -forehead to the sill. All the things I have dreamed of I find in -you—the strength, the sweetness, the courage. You are beautiful as -few women in this world are beautiful—and you are too good for any -man. But I—have dared to love you.” - -He ceased and turned his lips against her cheek. - -For Nance Allison the stars were singing together at the dawn of -creation, the glory of the spheres had appeared before her. - -“Answer me, girl,” said Brand Fair tremulously, “tell me what’s in -your heart.” - -“I—I——” said Nance, “I—think it is the light from the open gates of -Paradise—the smile of God Himself—because I am so happy!” - -“Sonny, old-timer,” said Fair, “here’s where you take a back seat -for once,” and he rolled the child, still sleeping like the healthy -little animal he was, over on the floor. - - * * * * * - -When the man arose to go some aeons later he gave Nance the package -which he had taken from a pocket. - -“Keep it, Sweetheart,” he said, “and open it if—anything happens to -me. It contains information vital to Sonny’s life and future—the -address of the New York lawyer who knows all my affairs and his, and -also copies of the proof he holds which can send Cattle Kate and -Arnold and all their lot behind the bars for life. Take it straight -to Sheriff Selwood if you have to act for me, and if he is alive and -conscious. If not, Bossick will do in his stead. He’s a good man. -There’s a picture in that package. Nance—the face of Sonny’s mother. -But I’m not figuring that you’ll have any call to open it—not by a -long shot. This is all by way of wise precaution, you know. Now give -me one more kiss.” - - * * * * * - -Brand Fair rode away and the girl he left upon the cabin’s step was -too far adrift on the seas of happiness to realize that he had not -told her the one thing vital—who was Sonny’s father? - - - - - CHAPTER XVII - - THE FACE IN THE PACKAGE - - -At last Nance Allison knew the meaning of the great light that -seemed to glow upon all the world of the Deep Heart hills. - -Instinct awoke in her and she beheld the face of love. - -The knowledge set her trembling to her soul’s foundation, sent her -to her knees beside her big bed that she might return to that high -Tribunal which arbited her ways such a deep devotion of thanksgiving -as she had never made before. - -Abasement seized her. - -What was she in her loneliness and poverty, that such a man as Brand -Fair might find her worthy? - -What had she ever done of valor that one might admire her? - -There was no light of courageous deeds upon her sordid life, no -record of spectacular events in which she figured. - -She had merely been a drudge, working out her soul to carry on her -father’s dreams of empire, to hold fast the place which he had left -to her and hers. - -She had only labored and stood firm, watching with anguished eyes -the fruits of those labors being destroyed—she had made no effort to -strike back at her enemies. - -And despite all this, Brand Fair loved her! - -Loved her and had laid his lips to hers in the first love-kiss of -her life! - -Verily was she blessed beyond all reason and she lifted up her heart -in praise. - -She did not see the austere beauty of that stern strength which held -her true in the midst of affliction, which lifted those patient blue -eyes of hers to the tranquil Heavens above her ruined fields, her -burned stacks, which made her love her lonely land, her people and -her God with unshaken devotion, which gave her peace in danger and -set before her the burning beacon of right which could not fail to -triumph. - -She only knew that she, lone toiler in an unfriendly wilderness, had -been anointed of the Lord with unspeakable glory, and she was bowed -into the dust with gratitude. - -It was a holy night she spent upon her knees in the soft darkness -with her work-hardened hands clasped on the ancient coverlet and the -long gold lashes trembling and wet upon her cheeks. It was an -offertory, an adoration and a covenant. - -She felt the hours pass with benediction. - -Once she looked toward the little window and saw the unfamiliar -stars of the after-night upon the curtain of the sky. - -She heard the child’s soft breathing in the improvised crib beyond, -and at false dawn she heard Old John crow from the rafters. - -At the first grey light she lifted her face and with a smile at her -lips’ corners she murmured the ancient words of David’s immortal -thanksgiving: - - “The King shall joy in Thy strength, Oh, Lord; and in - Thy salvation how greatly shall he rejoice! For Thou - hast made him most blessed forever; Thou hast made him - exceeding glad with Thy countenance. Thou hast given him - the desire of his heart. Selah.” - -“Mammy,” she said at breakfast, “I’ve got to tell you something—you -and Bud.” - -There was a soft radiance about her long blue eyes, a helpless -surrender to the smiles that would keep coming on her features. - -Her mother looked at her calmly. - -“Well?” she said. - -But over Bud’s young face there passed a spasm of pain. - -“You needn’t tell it,” he said sharply, “we know—don’t we, Mammy? -It’s Brand——” - -“Sure, we know, Nance, honey,” said Mrs. Allison gently, “an’ we -want to tell you, Bud an’ I, how plumb happy we are—how glad we are -to see happiness come to the best daughter, the best sister, two -people ever had on this here earth. Ain’t we, Buddy?” - -The boy swallowed once, then looked at Nance and smiled. - -It was not the least courageous thing he was ever to accomplish, -that smile, and his mother knew it, for he adored the girl, and she -had been his only playmate all his life. - -But at his mother’s subtle words jealousy died and love stepped back -triumphantly. - -“We sure are, Sis,” he said and kissed her on the cheek. - -The child slept late that morning. Perhaps he had been more or less -disturbed by Nance’s wakefulness. She stepped to the bedroom door -once and looked at him, but left him there. - -“We might as well sit down,” she said, “he’s fast asleep yet and I -can feed him when he does get up.” - -They talked gaily all through the meal, reviewing the wonder that -had come to Nance, and it seemed a new future was opening before -them all. - -“Brand seems like one of us already,” said Mrs. Allison, “an’ I -think with joy what a help he’ll be to you an’ Bud—th’ land is rich -an’ will keep us all in plenty with a man like him to manage an’ to -stand between us an’ Sky Line. An’ he’s like your Pappy was—kind an’ -still, a strength an’ a hope for us. If Bud is willin’ we’ll offer -him share an’ share.” - -“Sure,” said the boy decidedly. - -When he had once capitulated Bud stood firm, wholeheartedly backing -his decision. - -“I just don’t seem able to grasp it all,” said Nance happily, “it -seems like our whole life has changed overnight. There is light -where darkness was, hope again where I’d about given it up—and now -we’ll never have to give up Sonny.” - -“That’s so!” cried Mrs. Allison, “an’ I hadn’t thought of that. -Never seemed like we would any way—bless him.” - -“Me?” asked a fresh little voice from the doorway, and the child -stood there, rumple-headed, in his small night-gown made from -flour-sacks. The faded red lettering still stood frankly out across -his diminutive stomach. - -“Yes—you,” said Nance, “come here to your own Nance.” - -Sonny sidled in, holding up the hindering garment with one hand, the -other shut over some small article. - -As Nance lifted him to her lap he laid this on the table’s edge. - -“See,” he said, “the pretty lady. She was in a bundle on your -bed—where’d you get her, Nance?” - -And Nance Allison looked down into the pictured face of—Cattle Kate -Cathrew. - -For a moment the laughter still drew her lips, the soft light of -happiness still illumined her eyes. - -Then the light and the laughter were erased from her features as if -an invisible hand had wiped them. - -In their place came first a blankness, an incredulity—then, as -realization and memory struck home to her brain, the anguish of -death itself swept across her face. - -She stared with dilating pupils at the small picture. - -“Nance!” cried her mother, “_Nance!_” - -She raised her eyes and looked at Mrs. Allison and the latter felt a -chill of fear. - -“Take—Sonny, Bud,” she said slowly, “and get his clothes.” - -Bud, tactful and quiet, did as she asked, and when she was alone -with her mother the girl held out the picture. - -“Brand told me—last night,” she said haltingly, “that a package he -gave me—to open in case anything happened—to him—held the face -of—of—of Sonny’s mother. This is Cattle Kate Cathrew.” - -“My good Lord A’mighty!” ejaculated Mrs. Allison. - -Nance nodded. - -“Then—who’s his—father?” - -“Who d’you suppose, Mammy?” asked the girl miserably, “I’m afraid -it’s Brand—the man who says he loves me!” - -The gaunt old mother came round the table and put an unaccustomed -arm about her daughter’s shoulders. Caresses were rare with her. - -“No,” she said decidedly, “Brand Fair ain’t a deceiver. I’d stake a -lot on that. I feel to trust him, honey. Whatever is wrong in this -terrible tangle, it ain’t Brand—an’ you can take your old Mammy’s -word on that.” - -The girl straightened her shoulders, lifted her head. - -“I do trust him, Mammy,” she said gallantly, “whatever has happened -in the past I know it has not made him a liar—and I feel to be -ashamed of myself.” - -“Needn’t,” said Mrs. Allison succinctly, “it’s natural—th’ age-old -instinct of jealousy. Come down from our naked ancestors when th’ -man was th’ food-getter an’ th’ woman fought with tooth an’ nail if -another female hove in sight. You’d like to go right out now an’ -scratch that woman’s eyes out, wouldn’t you?” - -A sickly smile trembled on Nance’s lips. - -“I guess I would,” she said unsteadily, “because—you see—if—if she’s -his wife—why—he can’t take another.” - -“There’s divorce laws in this country, ain’t there? How do you know -she’s his wife now?” - -“Mammy,” said Nance gratefully, “you’re the most wonderful woman I -ever knew! You’ve got more reason than a houseful of lawyers. And -I’m going to take heart right now. I’ll put this picture away in the -package and wait till Brand is ready to tell me all about it—and -I’ll stand steady in my love and my faith.” - -“That’s my big girl!” said the mother, “now get to work at -something. It’s th’ best cure-all on earth.” - - * * * * * - -Cattle Kate Cathrew sat on the broad veranda at Sky Line. She was -clad like a sybarite, in shining satin. Rings sparkled on her -fingers, lights sparkled in her hard eyes, a close-held excitement -was visible in her whole appearance. She looked down across the vast -green-clad slopes of Mystery and held her breath that she might the -better listen for a sound in the stillness. - -For she was waiting for the writer of those letters, the man from -New York who came at regular intervals to bask in the peace of Sky -Line—for Lawrence Arnold himself. - -It had been months since she had seen him, and the passion in her -was surging like molten lava. - -It made her heart beat in slow, heavy strokes, too deeply charged -for swiftness. It made her lips dry as fast as she could wet them, -set a feeling of paralysis along the muscles of her arms. - -She was in a trance of expectation, as exquisite as the fullest -realisation. She had been so ever since the departure at early dawn -of Provine with a led horse—none other than Bluefire whose proud -back no one but this man ever crossed, except herself. - -For three hours she had sat in the rustic rocker like a graven -image, her hands spread on the broad arms, her immaculate black head -seemingly at rest against the back. - -And not a soul at Sky Line would have disturbed her. - -From a distant corral where he tinkered at some trivial task Big -Basford watched her with wild red eyes. At these times the man was a -savage who would have killed Arnold joyfully had the thing been -possible. Minnie Pine, busy at the kitchen window, watched him. - -“The Black Devil is in hell, Josefa,” she said guardedly, “he knows -the master’s coming—and that the Boss will lie in his arms.” - -“He pays for his sins,” said Josefa calmly, “which is more than the -others do.” - -“Rod,” returned the half-breed, “has no sins.” - -“He-ugh! He-ugh!” laughed the old woman, “so says the young fool -because she loves him.” - -“I know what I know,” said Minnie, “the Blue Eyes has a clean heart. -One sin, maybe, yes—or two, maybe—but he sits sometimes with his -head in his hands, and he mourns—like our people for death. _He_ -says it _is_ for death—death of a man’s honor killed by mistake. _I_ -know, for I’ve sat with him then—and he has put his face in my -neck.” - -There was a high beauty about the simple words and the ancient dame -looked at the girl with understanding. For a moment the cynicism was -absent. - -“You speak truth,” she said softly, “the man is a stranger to these -others. Also he is of a white heart. He should have been a Pomo -chief in the old days.” - -Noon came and passed and Kate Cathrew did not eat. - -She watched the sun drop over toward the west, the pine shadows turn -on the slopes. - -And then, far down, she caught the sound of hoofs and rose straight -up from her chair, one hand on her thundering heart. The action was -her only concession to the fierce emotion which was eating her. When -Sud Provine came out of the pines below with Bluefire and his rider -in convoy she was seated again in the broad-armed rocker, to all -intents as calm as moonlight on snow. - -Lawrence Arnold dismounted stiffly and handed the rein to Provine, -then raised his eyes and looked at her. - -Over his white-skinned, aquiline features there passed a smile of -the closest understanding. - -He knew the volcano covered in and shut from sight under this -woman’s cool exterior—this woman who was his woman. - -Cattle Kate rose languidly and came to meet him and her brilliant -eyes returned the understanding to the _nth_ degree—they were full -of passion, of promise. - -“Man,” she said under her breath, as their hands met, “Oh, man! It’s -been so long!” - -That was all for the prying eyes that compassed them. - -They entered the house and Minnie Pine served the meal which had -been waiting and which was the best Sky Line could produce, and -afterward Lawrence Arnold reclined on a blanket-covered couch in the -living-room and smoked in smiling peace. - -Kate Cathrew sat near, her eyes devouring his slim form, and talked -swiftly of many vital matters. - -“Do you need any new men?” he asked her, “I have two who would be -good. One is out on bail—mine—the other was acquitted, as usual. -Both will crawl.” - -“No,” said Kate, “and I want to give you back one I have—Provine. He -is insubordinate. Deal with him hard.” - -Arnold nodded. - -“Was the last shipment O.K.?” asked Kate. “Have I done well, my -master?” - -She smiled jestingly, but the title was true in every sense of the -word. - -“Exceedingly,” he answered, “the shipment was prime and we cleaned -up on it. In my grips there are several little trinkets for you, -bought with some of the surplus. I commend you.” - -He reached for her hand and the woman flushed with pleasure. - -“This new shipment,” she said, “can you trust your agent to float -it?” - -“Absolutely, or I wouldn’t be here.” - -“It goes out in a few days—as soon as the hue-and-cry dies down a -bit. There is plenty of feed in Rainbow’s Pot to hold the herd -several weeks, if need be, but I like to get clear as quick as -possible.” - -“Good work. You’re a clever girl, Kate. We’re making money fast. One -thing more—have you succeeded in getting hold of the big feeding -flats on the river?” - -Kate frowned. - -“No—the damned poor trash hang on like grim death. I’ve done -everything but kill them, and they’re still there.” - -“That’s too bad,” said the man, “I guess maybe you need a little -help. What have you done?” - -“Everything. Used all the arts of intimidation I know—and destroyed -their livelihood.” - -“H’m,” said Arnold, “must be a pretty courageous outfit. Who are -they?” - -“Old Missouri mother—boy—and a big slab-sided girl who’s the whole -backbone of the family. Impudent baggage. You remember when the old -man—ah—fell down Rainbow a couple of years ago?” - -Arnold nodded again. - -“Well, they’re trash—_trash_,” said Kate, “and stick to the flats -like burrs. The girl’s religious. Talked some drivel about the hand -of God being before her face, and came out flat-footed and -said—before a crowd at the store, too—that those flats would feed a -lot of cattle through, and that maybe I had a—hope—concerning them.” - -“The devil she did!” said Arnold, sitting up. “I rather think you do -need another head to handle this.” - -“And that isn’t all,” said the woman. “Sheriff Selwood is knocked -out at present, but he watched the boys drive this last bunch into -the Pot. He rode to the very Flange itself. We’ve got to get these -cattle down the Pipe and out before he comes round—though from what -we can hear, it don’t seem likely he’ll come round. Sud shot him in -the head. I think he’ll die myself, or I’d have driven out by now.” - -Arnold was looking at her sharply. - -“That’s where you’re wrong, Kate,” he said decidedly, “never take -chances on the human system. I’ve seen a man come to after being -electrocuted. We’ll get busy right now—tomorrow. In the meantime, -please remember that I haven’t seen you for many moons. Let’s talk -of love, tonight.” - -There was a step at the door, and a dusty rider stood there. - -“Want to report,” he said, “that I’ve just come up the Pipe and I -found tracks—brushed out—at the mouth in Blue Stone—there were two -men on foot. No hoof-marks. They looked in behind the willows.” - -Kate Cathrew rose straight up to her feet. - -“Hell’s fire!” she said. - - - - - CHAPTER XVIII - - THE FIGHTING LINE AT LAST - - -Brand Fair haunted the Selwood ranch. He hung to the side of the -unconscious man almost night and day. - -“What do you think, doctor?” he asked anxiously of the medical man -brought in from Bement. - -“Frankly, I don’t think,” said that worthy, “these lapses, -superinduced by concussion, are treacherous things. He may recover -suddenly, or he may die without regaining consciousness. It’s a -gamble.” - -But anxious as he was to know the secret locked in the unconscious -brain of Price Selwood, Fair had not been idle. - -He and Bossick had been very busy. - -Many things had been done, a plan arranged, secret conclaves held at -which grim and determined men sat their horses and pledged -themselves to do a certain thing. - -Then Fair went to the cabin on Nameless, for the longing in his -heart to see Nance Allison grew with every passing hour. - -He held her in his arms and kissed her forehead and her smooth -cheeks, touched the shining coronet of her hair with reverent hands. - -“Sweetheart,” he whispered, after the age-old fashion of lovers, -“there was never a woman like you! You are my light in dark places, -my rain in the desert. Oh, Nance, what if I had never found you!” - -And the girl leaned on his heart in an ecstasy of love that was shot -with sadness, holding fast to her trust with desperate hands. - -“It’s bound to come soon now,” he told her, “we are organized and -ready—only waiting for Selwood, poor fellow, to regain his reason -that he may tell us where to strike.” - -“There’ll be gun-play and—blood,” said Nance miserably, “and I pray -God that you will not be taken. I—I couldn’t lose you, Brand, and -live. I wouldn’t dare to live—for if they kill you—Oh, that black -hatred which has stirred in me so long, is getting beyond my -strength to hold it! I’ll go mad and turn killer, Brand if they kill -you! I know it—I feel it here——” she laid eloquent hands on her -heart—“and then my soul will go into the pit of damnation.” - -“Hush!” said Fair holding her to him fiercely, “for the love of -Heaven, don’t talk so, child! And get that thought out of your head. -Whatever happens, keep your hands clean from that crowd of -ruffians—and always remember that Brand Fair loved you. If we fail -and the Sky Line people stay in the country, I beg you, Nance, to -leave Nameless River. Take your mother and Bud—and—and Sonny—and go -away to a more civilized spot. You can make another start. There’s a -little money in a New York bank for the boy—the papers in the -package will explain—and I know you love him——” - -But Nance laid her face on his breast and fell to weeping, so that -Fair anathematized himself for his grave words. - -“It seems,” she said, sobbing, “that we have reached the bottom—of -all things—hope—and—and strength—and happiness. And my grasp on God -is failing—He has turned His face from me—I am lost to the light of -His countenance—because of the hatred in me. I have stood firm -through tribulation but now—when I think of you—I feel my strength -desert me.” - -“Buck up,” scoffed the man playfully, “we’ll all come through with -colors flying and see this nest of vipers caged. Then think of life -on Nameless, Nance—safe and happy, with our fields and our herds and -peace in all the land. I shouldn’t have suggested anything else. -Come—be my brave girl again, my good fighter.” - -Obedient to his words, Nance straightened and tried to smile in the -starlight. - -“That’s it,” he said, “you’re resilient as willow wood—ready with a -come-back. You’ll never leave the line, Sweetheart, never in this -world!” - -It was late in the night when Fair rode away. - -He went south, going back to look again on the quiet face of Sheriff -Selwood, then on to the Deep Heart fringes to meet Bossick and -Jermyn. - -As for Nance Allison, she was seized with a great restlessness that -made inaction unbearable. - -“I think I’ll ride the lower slopes of Mystery, Mammy,” she said -next morning, “and look for that black shoat that’s missing. I can’t -afford to lose it.” - -The mother looked at her with worried eyes. - -“You take your Pappy’s gun,” she said at last. “I feel to tell you -so. Th’ time has come.” - -But the girl shook her head. - -“I don’t care,” she said, “I can’t trust myself of late.” She kissed -Sonny, ran a hand over Bud’s bronze hair, and went out to the stable -where she saddled Buckskin and rode away. - -Dirk, sitting gravely on the door-stone, begged to go with her, but -she forbade him. - -So she passed the bleak ruin of her cornfield, crossed the river, -low in its summer ebb, and struck up among the buck-brush and -manzanita that clothes the lower slopes. - -It was a sweet blue day with the summer haze on slant and level, -cool with the little winds that were ever drawing up between the -hills, silent with the eternal hush of the far places. - -All the wilderness smiled, the heavens, blue and flecked with -sailing clouds, were soft as infants’ eyes. - -Nature opened appealing arms to this child of her bosom and Nance, -sad and apprehensive as she had never been in her life before, went -into them and was comforted. - -She raised her eyes to the distant rimrock, shining above Rainbow -Cliff which was dark and sombre at this early hour, and felt its -austere beauty. She watched the cloud-shadows drifting on the -tapestried shoulders of the mountains and knew the sight for what it -was of privilege and blessing. - -So, as the little horse beneath her scrambled eagerly up the slants, -the peace of the waiting hills fell upon her with healing and the -sadness eased away. - -In every likely place she looked and listened for the black shoat, -but it seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth, like -the six fat steers. She followed a small ravine for longer than she -had intended, sat for a while in a sunny opening high along the -breast of Mystery, and sidled back toward the west again. - -And here it was that two men far above looked down and saw her with -ejaculations of delight. - -“Well, if this ain’t luck!” said Provine grinning, “then I’m a liar! -I thought this morning when Arnold handed us that last bunch of -instructions that he was due for once to come out th’ little end of -th’ horn. I didn’t see how any human was goin’ to be able to carry -them out. I didn’t think we’d ever get near enough to get her and do -it on th’ q. t. But she’s brought herself to us!” - -“If she’s armed,” said Caldwell shortly, “it’s not time yet to crow. -I think she’d fight.” - -“Fight, hell!” said the other, “she don’t believe in fightin’. She’s -religious. We’ll pick her up too easy an’ present her to th’ Boss -with our compliments.” - -An hour later Nance, riding along a dim trail made by the traveling -hoofs of deer, came out above a spring in a pretty glade. - -She was warm and thirsty, so she dismounted and pushing back her hat -from her sweated forehead, knelt on the spring’s lip and putting her -face to the limpid water, drank long and eagerly a foot from -Buckskin’s muzzle. - -As she straightened up, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, -she caught a sound where had been deep silence before—the sound of -something moving, the rattle of accoutrements, and turning quickly, -still upon her knees, she looked up into the grinning face of Sud -Provine, the frowning one of the Sky Line foremen. - -“By Jing!” said Provine wonderingly, “never havin’ seen you outside -that there ol’ bonnet of yours I didn’t know how purty you was! Them -eyes now—they’re right blue, ain’t they? An’ that wide mouth—all wet -where you stopped wipin’ it——” - -“You damn fool!” said Caldwell disgustedly, “shut up and mind the -business entrusted to you. Miss Allison,” he said to Nance, “you’re -just the person we wanted to see. We were sent this morning to fetch -you to Sky Line, so you may as well go along sensibly, for we’ll -take you any way.” - -Nance rose to her feet. - -A pink flush came slowly up along her throat to dye her cheeks and -chin. The slow heave inside her which she knew for the dangerous -“stirrings” seemed to slow the beating of her heart to a ponderous -stroke. - -“Then you’ll have to take me,” she said curtly, “for I’ll not ride a -step with any one from Sky Line.” - -She swung into her saddle and struck her heels to Buckskin’s sides -in a forlorn hope of escape—little Buckskin, stocky, slow and -faithful. - -Provine laughed again and dashed forward with a leap of his grey -Silvertip that put him alongside in a second. - -“Ain’t no use, purty,” he said and caught her rein. - -He turned the little horse up the slope, Caldwell fell in close -behind and in a matter of two minutes Nance Allison was a prisoner -headed for Sky Line Ranch. - -The pink flush was gone entirely from her face, leaving it pale as -wax. Her lips were faintly ashen. - -“You needn’t be so scared,” said the irrepressible Provine, “we -won’t hurt you.” - -The girl turned her eyes upon him and they were black with the -dilation of the pupils which always accompanied extreme emotion in -her. - -“Scared?” she said thickly, “I was never less scared in my life.” - -With the words she was conscious of a passionate longing for the -feel of her Pappy’s old gun in her hands. - -“Help me, Lord!” she whispered inaudibly, “Oh, my God, be not far -from me!” - -They followed no trail, but cut through thicket and glade in a -lifting angle well calculated to bring them out at the cluster of -buildings at the foot of Rainbow Cliff. - -This was new country to Nance. - -She had never been so high on Mystery Ridge. - -She noticed how the buck-brush and manzanita had given place to yew -and pine and fir tree, how the slants steepened sharply as they -neared the summit. - -She had told the truth when she said she was not frightened. - -There was no fear in her, only a deep and surging anger that seemed -to make her lungs labor for sufficient air. Her usually smiling lips -were set together in a thin line. - -To a student of physiognomy she would have presented an appearance -of volcanic repression, her very calmness would have been a danger -signal. - -But the two men who formed her guard were not of sufficient mental -keenness to read the silent signs. - -So, in silence, save for Provine’s occasional jesting observations, -they climbed the breast of the great ridge and presently struck into -the well-worn trail which led direct to Sky Line. - -The sun was well over toward the west and the towering rock-face was -resplendent in its magic tints when they rode out of the clump of -pines and saw the ranch house sitting low and spreading above its -high veranda, in the open. - -At the broad steps to the right Nance was ordered to dismount. - -Provine took Buckskin and Caldwell motioned her to ascend the steps. -With her head up and her mouth tight shut Nance Allison strode -forward into the stronghold of her enemies. - -The door was open, and she saw first only a pale darkness within as -she stopped on the threshold. - -Then, pushed forward by the foreman with a none too gentle hand, her -eyes slowly became accustomed to the shadowy interior and in spite -of herself they widened with amazement at the splendor she beheld. - -Sky Line was famed for its luxury, but most of this fame was -hearsay. Nance knew instantly that it was pitifully inadequate. - -The broad windows were shaded with tasseled satin drapes. - -On the walls hung great paintings, deep and glowing with priceless -art. Huge chairs, their rounded arms and rolling backs covered with -velvet in pale shades of violet and orchid, sank their feet into the -pile of moss green carpet, while here and there gleamed the cool -whiteness of marble. This was the Inner Room. Beyond it opened that -plainer one wherein Kate Cathrew did her every-day routine of work -at the dark wood desk. - -A man was sitting on a broad couch, a cigarette in his fingers. He -was a stranger to Nance, a stranger to the country, but she -catalogued him swiftly as the man from New York of whom all Nameless -had heard. He was slim and fair skinned, and the grey eyes, set -rather close together across the arch of the high-bridged nose, were -the sharpest she had ever seen in a human. A fox she had once seen -caught in a trap had had just such eyes. - -They were cold and appraising, without a spark of kindness. - -In one of the gorgeous chairs Kate Cathrew, dressed like a princess, -sat bolt upright. - -At sight of Nance in her faded garments, straight and defiant in her -controlled anger, her handsome face flushed beneath its artistry. - -“Ah!” she said, like a vixen, “get—out—of—that—door. Step over to -the right a bit, you obscure the light.” - -The big girl did not move. - -She stood with her hat pulled down above her narrowed eyes, one hand -on her hip. - -“If you’ve got anything to say to me,” she said coldly, “say it.” - -Kate Cathrew leaped to her feet, but the man put out a hand and -touched her. - -As if a spring had been released she sank down, obeying that calm -touch like an automaton. - -“Miss—ah—Allison,” said Arnold, “there is no need for dramatics. -Neither will they avail you. We wanted to see you—to talk business -with you. So we sent for you.” - -“So I see,” said Nance, “or rather you kidnapped me.” - -“Not so decided, please. We don’t like such words. They -are—ah—crude, I might say.” - -“Not half so crude as you will find the methods of Nameless when -this gets out, I guess,” said Nance. “Heaven knows I don’t amount to -much, but I am likely to be a torch for a fire that’s smouldering.” - -“We have extinguishers,” smiled Arnold. “Sky Line is a pretty fire -department, if I do say it. The thing for you to do just now -is—think, I’ll give you ten minutes.” - -“I don’t need them,” said Nance. “I’ve thought for several -years—about my father’s death—my brother’s crippled body—my missing -cattle—my burned stacks—and many other things. I’m thinking now -about Sheriff Selwood—and Bossick’s latest loss.” - -The man’s face hardened, yet a reluctant admiration drew a slight -smile across it. - -“You take liberties, Miss Allison. Are you not—speaking in jest—a -little—ah—afraid to speak so broadly?” - -Nance laughed bitterly, shifting on her feet in their worn boots. - -“Afraid? No—not of you—nor of your hired rustlers—nor of Cattle -Kate, there, with her paint and her tempers. I’m not afraid of -anything but the wrath of God.” - -At that Arnold laughed outright. - -“You have something yet to learn, I see. Very well, since you do not -care to think I will outline briefly your situation. You know, of -course, that you are at present in the power of Sky Line Ranch. -Reasoning backward you will come to the conclusion that there is a -primal cause for this. Reasoning forward you will know that there is -something which you can do for Sky Line, which it wants of you.” - -“Of course,” said Nance, “the whole country knows that—my flats on -the river.” - -Arnold frowned. - -He did not like that answer. - -“And how, may I ask, does the country know this?” - -“It knows what has happened to me for several years now—and it -judges the faces of your riders and their boss.” - -“If you please, we’ll leave Miss Cathrew out of this,” said Arnold -crisply. - -“Yes?” asked Nance. “She’s been the backbone of my troubles—under -you, no doubt—and it isn’t likely I’ll leave her out. If you have -anything to say to me I’d advise you to say it and get it over -before Nameless comes hunting me.” - -“All Nameless may come hunting you, Miss Allison,” returned the man, -“but it will not find you. Now put your wits in order. Sky Line -wants those flats on the river—and means to have them. We don’t do -things by halves. What we undertake we finish. The time has come for -decisive action. You have had many—ah—hints to vacate and have -foolishly disregarded them. That is like a woman. A man would have -gone long ago.” - -“Not any man,” interrupted Nance, “my Pappy didn’t.” - -“No?” said Arnold cruelly. “Is he here?” - -Quick tears misted the girl’s eyes, but the slowly throbbing anger -burned them out. - -“Yes,” she said promptly, “and always will be—at the foot of our -mountain—and in Bud and me. He has not yet been conquered.” - -Arnold dropped his dead cigarette into a tall brass receptacle, rose -and stepped into the other room. He picked something from the desk -there and came back. - -“We come to cases,” he said sharply. “I have here a properly made -out deed, conveying to Miss Cathrew for the consideration of one -dollar, the quarter-section of land herein described, lying along -Nameless River, owned by the widow of John Allison, deceased, who -took up said land under the homestead act. This paper needs only the -name of John Allison’s widow and two witnesses to make it a legal -transfer of property. I am a notary. We can supply the witnesses—the -highly important and necessary signature of John Allison’s widow you -will obligingly furnish—at a price.” - -Nance’s eyes were studying his face all the while he was speaking. -They were black and narrow, without a visible trace of their serene -blue. Now the lower lid came up across the excited iris like the -blade of a guillotine. - -“Let me understand you clearly,” she said, “you are asking me to -forge my Mammy’s name to a deed to give away her home land—the land -her husband patented and left her as her all? Is this what you are -asking me?” - -“Exactly,” said Arnold, “but don’t forget the condition—at a price, -I said, you know—at—a price.” - -Nance swept off her hat and struck it down against her knee. A laugh -broke stiffly on her tallow-white face. - -“If I could swear,” she said, “I’d tell you where to go, and what I -thought you were. You may consider yourself told as it is.” - -Arnold became coldly grave. - -“You refuse?” - -“What do you think I do? Put your wits in order!” - -The man turned and struck a bell which stood on a rosewood pedestal. -Minnie Pine responded with suspicious promptness. - -“Send me Provine and Big Basford,” said Arnold briefly, and the girl -departed. - -The man did not speak again, nor did Nance. - -Kate Cathrew sat still in her luxurious chair, her baleful black -eyes traveling over the girl from head to foot with bitter interest. - -There came a shuffle and rattle of spur and the two Sky Line riders -stood in the doorway of the room beyond, having come through the -kitchen. - -“Miss Allison,” said Arnold, “I own the men of Sky Line, how or why -is unimportant. What I tell them to do, they do. Am I not right, -men?” - -Provine nodded easily. - -Big Basford spoke sullenly. - -“Yes, sir,” he said. - -“All right. Now, my girl, consider. There is on Sky Line a secret -place——” - -“I’ve always thought so,” said Nance decidedly. - -“Be quiet. A place which the whole of Nameless is not likely to -find, so mysteriously is its entrance hidden. One could live there -for a lifetime undiscovered—or be taken out as if on wings——” - -“Like Bossick’s disappearing steers!” - -Arnold was exasperated, but held his temper. - -“Exactly,” he said, “if you will. Now consider again. You are a -pretty fine specimen of a woman—quite likely to appeal to -men—especially to men long denied feminine companionship—like -Basford there.” - -Nance flung a glance at Basford. His sullen, lowering face set in -its thicket of beard with the red-rimmed eyes above was enough to -chill the heart of any woman. The great ape-like body added its own -threat. Her own intrepid spirit felt a shock of horror, but that -deep anger in her left little room for fear. - -She seemed to hear again Brand Fair’s exultant words: “You’ll never -leave the line, Nance, never in this world!” - -With a dogged courage heaving through the anger she looked back at -Arnold. - -“Well?” she said. - -“Big Basford hasn’t had a woman of his own for many moons, I know. -Now—will you sign this deed—or will you go with Basford to Rainbow’s -Pot—his blushing bride?” - -Nance’s breast was heaving. Great breaths dilated her lungs and -whistled out again. Her hands were shut tight, the fingers on her -hat brim crimping the weathered felt. - -She thought of her Mammy—of Bud—of their long labor and the -hardships they had borne. She thought of the cabin on Nameless—of -its white scrubbed floors—its homely comforts—and all it meant to -them and to her. It was her Pappy’s dream of empire—it had been -hers. She thought of Brand Fair and of Sonny. Of Brand and Bud who -would sure start the fire to burning in all the lonely reaches at -news of her disappearance—and— - -“I’m as good as most men,” she said, “to take care of myself. I -wouldn’t sign that paper to save you and all your rustler nest from -eternal damnation! And that’s my last word.” - -Arnold snapped his fingers. - -“Enough,” he said, “we’ll see what a night in Rainbow’s Pot will do -for you. Basford—my compliments. I give you the beautiful lady. -Properly disciplined she’ll make you a fine wife.” - -But Big Basford shook his unkempt head. - -“She’s a yellow woman,” he said contemptuously, “I don’t want her,” -and his hungry eyes went helplessly toward the dark splendor of Kate -Cathrew in her velvet chair. - -Provine surged forward, a sudden excitement in his snaky orbs. - -“_I_ do,” he cried, “try me!” - -Arnold laughed. - -“Good! I like an eager lover. _You_ may guard Miss Allison inside, -and Basford shall take the place I had intended for you outside the -Flange. We’ll talk business some more tomorrow. We bid you adieu, -Miss Allison. I hope by morning you will be more amenable to -reason.” - -Without a backward glance Nance turned and strode away between her -guards. Resistance was useless, she well knew. - -“‘In my distress I cried unto the Lord and He heard me,’” she -thought courageously. “‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from -whence cometh my help.’” - -“One moment,” called Arnold, still laughing, “remember that the -Secret Way tells no tales—and that Provine has long wanted to go -back to Texas.” - -The girl turned and glanced back. - -“The hand of God,” she said calmly, “is ever before my face. Neither -you nor yours can do me harm for the Lord shall preserve me from all -evil, He shall preserve my soul. And He did not make me strong for -nothing,” she added “I shall leave it all to Him.” - - - - - CHAPTER XIX - - RIDERS OF PORTENT - - -Minnie Pine could get from one place to another more quickly and -with less noise than any one at Sky Line. - -When Rod Stone came in at dusk she came running to him in the -shadows to whisper in his ear. - -“The Sun Woman from the flats on Nameless,” she said, “has thrown -their words back in the faces of the Master and the Boss—and they -have given her to Sud to guard—in Rainbow’s Pot with Big Basford at -the Flange. It’s devil’s work.” - -There was little or no expression on the half-breed’s placid face, -but there was plenty of it in her low voice. - -“Good God!” said the boy, “are you sure, Minnie?” - -“I heard—and I saw,” she answered, “and my heart is heavy for the -pretty one with the eagle’s eyes. She does not fear—but she does not -know.” - -Rod Stone put out an arm and hugged the girl gently. - -“You’re a real woman, kid, if your skin is brown,” he said -admiringly, “and after all, it’s heart that counts. Now tell me -about this.” - -They stood close together in the shadows of the fir beside the -corral and the girl talked swiftly, recounting with almost flawless -accuracy what had taken place in the Inner Room. - -The boy was silent but his lips were tightly compressed and his blue -eyes shone with wrath. - -“I came,” said Minnie frankly, “to you, because you are the only man -at Sky Line. The rest are skunks. Josefa says you have the heart of -a Pomo chief.” - -Stone stood for a long time considering. - -Then he drew a deep breath and flung up his head. - -The motion was full of portent, as if something in him which had -long bowed down sprang aloft with vigor, like a young tree, bent to -earth, released. - -“You’re right,” he said, “it’s devil’s work and something must be -done. I am the one to do it, too.” - -He was silent for another space. Then he turned to the girl. - -“Kid,” he said, “I’ve been thinking about you lately—about making a -get-a-way down the Pipe some night and striking across the desert -for Marston—we could find a parson there and drop over the Line into -Mexico. Arnold hasn’t much on me—perhaps less than on anyone at Sky -Line—and we could make a new start——” - -There was the soft sound of an indrawn breath and Minnie Pine’s hand -went to her shapely throat. - -Stone went on. - -“If I do this—if I hit down for Cordova tonight—you know, of course, -that it is very likely to be the end of me one way or another, in -the general stir-up that will follow. I want you to know any way -before I start—that I’d like that new beginning—with you.” - -For a long moment there was no sound save the myriad voices of the -conifers talking mysteriously with the winds of night. - -Then the Pomo girl put her hands on the white man’s shoulders. - -“A chief,” she said, “does what must be done—without fear—and a -chief’s woman follows him—even to death. Saddle two horses.” - - * * * * * - -At Sheriff Price Selwood’s ranch an anxious circle watched the still -form on the bed. The doctor from Bement had not left his station for -seven hours. Outside cowboys, all armed, walked here and there, and -on the deep veranda sat the prospector, Smith, smoking innumerable -cigarettes and waiting on destiny. - -Though he was filled with inner excitement his dark face gave no -sign. He sat tilted back against the wall, his booted feet on the -round of his chair, his hat pulled low over his eyes, and his keen -vision sweeping the stretch of meadow that lay before the ranch -house. - -“It may be an hour—it may be ten—but something is going to happen -soon,” the doctor had said at dusk, “he will either rally or sink. -If he speaks he will be rational, I think.” - -And on that chance the stranger waited to ask one question, namely: -“What is the secret of Sky Line? Where is the other end of the -passage?” - -For all the hours that Price Selwood had lain unconscious fourteen -men under Bossick had camped in a glade under the flaring skirts of -Mystery’s western end, ready to answer Fair’s summons. - -Diamond waited in Selwood’s stable, saddled and fit, and everything -waited on the intrepid sheriff himself who had done such valiant -work “to get the goods” on Sky Line. - -A late round moon was rising above the distant rimrock of Rainbow -Cliff, a great golden disc that promised full light, and all the -little winds, born in the cañons of the Deep Heart hills, frolicked -like elves among the trees. - -Fair’s thoughts were of the girl on Nameless—of her long blue eyes -with their steady light, of her smiling lips and the golden crown of -her braided hair. - -He drifted away, as lovers have done since time was, and it was the -low-toned voice of the doctor which recalled him. - -“Mr. Smith,” it said without a change of inflection, “come in -carefully.” - -He rose and, tossing away his cigarette, stepped softly across the -sill. - -In the faint light of the oil lamp on a stand Sheriff Selwood looked -up into the face of his wife, bending above him. - -“Sally,” he said weakly. - -Then he turned his head and looked slowly around at the others. - -“Hello, Doc,” he whispered, then—“they didn’t get me—after all! -Smith—Smith——” a sudden light leaped into the dazed eyes, “I -saw—them drive Bossick’s—Bossick’s steers into the face of—Rainbow -Cliff a mile west—of Sky Line——” - -“That’s plenty,” said Fair quickly, “you mustn’t talk, Selwood—mind -the doctor—I’m leaving now.” - -And with a gentle touch on the sick man’s shoulder he was gone. - -He ran to the stable and got Diamond. - -Five of Selwood’s riders were throwing saddles on horses. - -In less time than seemed possible the six men were riding for the -rendezvous on Nameless. - -All along the flowing river there was the seeming of portent, a -strange sense of impending tragedy, for many riders were abroad in -the quiet night. - -One of these was Bud Allison, his young face set and awful, his -Pappy’s old rifle grasped in a steady hand, pushing Big Dan to an -unaccustomed limit of speed toward Sheriff Selwood’s ranch. - -The boy was praying that he might find Brand there—and the old gun -was destined for action. - -But within the narrow margin of a mile Fair was passing toward the -north as he went south—and thus Bud missed him with the news of -Nance’s disappearance. Had they met, the happenings of that night -might have had a different ending, for Fair would have stormed the -citadel of Sky Line like a fury, forgetting all things in his fear -for the woman he loved—the ends of justice which he sought to serve, -Bossick’s steers and everything else. - -And in the shadow of Rainbow Cliff Rod Stone and Minnie Pine waited -patiently for the ranch to settle down that they might slip away. - -It was a dark night, soft and soundless, with all things waiting in -a mysterious hush. - -At the camp on the skirts of Mystery, Fair found Bossick ready. - -“Selwood’s conscious,” he told him quickly, “and his first thought -was of his race for life. He said ‘they didn’t get me after all,’ -and ‘I saw them driving Bossick’s steers into the face of Rainbow -Cliff a mile from Sky Line.’ That’s the secret he discovered and for -which they tried to kill him. - -“There’s some sort of opening in the rock face which connects with -the subterranean passage that leads to Blue Stone Cañon, the desert -range beyond, and finally to Marston on the railroad. That, -gentlemen, is the secret of your disappearing cattle. Selwood said -they always vanished at the same time Kate Cathrew drove her stock -down to Cordova and out to the station—do you see? - -“The drive, coming down to the river, obliterated all tracks of -those going up. Now that we know I think we’ve got the Sky Line -rustlers dead to rights. There are twenty-one of us. - -“We’ll divide you; you, Bossick, going with your party up to Rainbow -Cliff, and I striking up through the mysterious passage. This trip -will take a long hard grill, for it is far up Blue Stone to the -south, and none of us know the length of the underground way. - -“However, it must lead to some pocket not far from the cliff itself -and on the inside. A gun-shot will locate us when we are ready for -each other. Lord knows what we’ll find, or what the outcome will be. -Let’s go.” - -And so it was that some time later Brand Fair with his posse passed -close along the upper edge of Nance Allison’s ruined field and -thought tenderly of the blue-eyed girl with her dogged courage and -her simple faith, little dreaming that she was not safe in her bed -in the cabin. - -The hours of the night wore on. - -Far down in the open reaches poor Dan was loping gallantly with open -mouth and laboring lungs while the boy on his back drove him -relentlessly on in a desperate attempt to overtake Fair, whom the -sentries at Selwood’s ranch had described as on the way to Mystery -Ridge. - -Crossing diagonally down, Rod Stone, safe away from Sky Line at -last, made for Cordova with Minnie Pine behind him. - -Bossick, having the shortest journey of all, sat in a clump of pines -with his men around him, and waited in strained silence for a -distant shot. - -It was well after midnight when two things took place at almost the -same moment—Brand Fair rode in behind the clump of willows that were -always _blowing out_ from the cañon’s wall with his men in single -file behind him—and Rod Stone got off his horse at Cordova. He -handed his rein to the Pomo girl and went swiftly up the steps, -opening the door upon the lighted room where a group of men were -playing. They were mostly from the Upper Country, though one or two -were Cordovans. Among them were the bearded man who had sat on -McKane’s porch that day in spring and watched Cattle Kate come -riding in on Bluefire, and the young cowboy with whom he had spoken -concerning them. - -Stone, a Sky Line man, received cold glances from the faces raised -at his entrance. All Nameless knew and disapproved of Sky Line. But -the boy was made of courageous stuff and he tackled the issue -promptly. - -“Men,” he said sharply, “I’m from Sky Line, as you all know, and you -may class me now as a traitor to my outfit. Perhaps I am. That’s -neither here nor there. I don’t give a damn whether I am or not. I’d -have stood true in all cases but one. That one has happened. There’s -a good girl—a Bible girl, like I used to know back in the middle -west—shut up in a secret spot with Sud Provine—and I’ve got to have -help to save her and that quick. She’s a fighter, I think, and is -strong—but—you all know Provine. I don’t know what I’m stirring up -and I don’t care. Will you come?” - -Every chair at the dirty canvas-covered table but one shot back and -outward as the players rose. - -“Where’s this here spot—an’ who’s th’ girl?” said the cowboy. “Lead -us to ’em.” - -“In Rainbow Cliff—and the Allison girl from the homestead on the -River.” - -“Th’ hell you say! Ain’t that poor kid had enough trouble?” - -But McKane the trader spoke from where he sat, frowning. - -“Ain’t you all taking a lot for granted?” he asked, “and mussing in -Kate Cathrew’s business?” - -The bearded man turned on him. - -“Damn Kate Cathrew’s business! She can’t give a decent girl to that -slimy rep-tile Provine and get by with it in this man’s country—not -by a damn sight! Get your horses, boys!” - -As the players surged out, McKane, obeying some apprehensive -instinct which pulled at his heart like a cold hand, rose and -followed. - -“Wait till I get mine!” he shouted as he ran. - - - - - CHAPTER XX - - CONCLUSION - - -When Nance Allison mounted Buckskin at Kate Cathrew’s door a -terrible weight hung at her heart, yet a current of strength seemed -flowing in her veins. - -“‘The Lord is the strength of my life,’” she thought valiantly, “‘of -whom shall I be afraid?’” - -The courage of the familiar words had been with her through many -bitter trials—it did not fail her now. - -But she was not conscious that she no longer called upon her Maker -for help to bear, to be patient under persecution, or that she ran a -hand along the muscle of her right arm testing its quality. - -Rather there was intensified in her that slow itch of wrath which -had swept away humility. - -So she rode in silence with Provine’s lascivious eyes upon her from -behind, and Big Basford glowering in self-centered inattention -ahead. - -The way led close along the foot of Rainbow Cliff among the -weathered debris which sifted always down the rock face, and -presently she was amazed to see the wall itself seem to slice in -between Basford and herself, and in another second she was riding -into a very narrow defile in the living stone with Provine close -upon her horse’s heels. There was just room for horse and rider in -the echoing aisle and none to spare. It was dimly lighted by what -seemed a crack in the earth’s surface high up among the clouds. The -girl looked up in wonder. - -This, she knew, was the secret of Rainbow Cliff and Mystery Ridge. -Despite her danger she noted the passage with keen interest. The way -was short for in a few minutes the rock-walled cut turned sharply to -the right and ended abruptly. - -Before her startled vision lay spread out a little paradise, round -as a cup, green with tender grass, dotted with oak and poplar trees -beside its countless springs—and grazing contentedly on its -peculiarly rank forage was a band of cattle, each one of which bore -on its left the “B. K.” of Bossick’s brand! - -But stranger than all this was the straight high wall of tinted -stone which completely encircled the spot, with no opening other -than the one through which she and her guard had entered. - -This, then, was Rainbow’s Pot of which Arnold had spoken. - -In utter astonishment she drew Buckskin up and looked at the “secret -spot” of Sky Line Ranch. - -It was fair to the eye, the ear and the nostril, for the sunlight -fell warm upon its farther side, the songs of a myriad birds made -music in the trees and the still air was drenched with the scent of -some nameless flower. - -It was not until she had taken it all in with a slowly comprehensive -glance that she became conscious of something strange in its -formation, namely—the tendency of the green-clad floor to slope from -all sides smoothly down to the center where there seemed to be a -cave with an overhanging edge. - -This slanting hole was dark in the midst of the green with the late -light upon it, like the sinister entrance to some underground -cavern. - -“Well,” said Provine amusedly, “how do you like it?” - -The girl did not reply, but sat still with her hands crossed on her -saddle horn. - -The snaky eyes under the black brows lost their drowsy pleasantry. - -“I wouldn’t advise you, purty,” he said, “to come the -high-and-mighty with me. A little kindness, now, would go a long way -towards an understandin’. Get off that horse.” - -Without a word Nance obeyed. - -A little cold touch was at her inmost heart, but that tight, tense -feeling of strength was still with her. She measured Provine’s -shoulders with her eyes as he unsaddled the animals and turned them -out to graze. She looked at his long arms, his lean and sinewy back. - -“I’ve handled my plow all spring,” she said to herself sagely, “I -pitched hay all day and was not too tired at night. I can lift a -grain sack easy. I’ll sell out hard if I have to—for Mammy and Brand -and Bud and Sonny.” - -And when Provine turned and come toward her, smiling, he was met by -blue eyes that were hard as shining stone, a mouth like a line of -battle and hands clutched hard on folded arms. - -“Oh, ho,” he said, “we’re goin’ to butt our head agin a wall, ain’t -we? Cut it, kid, an’ kiss me—you might as well now as later. An’ -besides, I don’t like a mouth all mashed up from discipline.” - -“The hand of God,” said the big girl stiffly, “is before my face. -His host is round about me. _I’d_ advise _you_ to let me alone.” - -The man threw back his head and laughed. - -“I don’t see no host,” he said, “an’ I ain’t superstitious,” and -with a leap he swung one long arm around her neck. - -“Help me, Lord!” said Nance aloud, and bowing her young body she -pulled her forehead down his breast and slipped free. - -Next moment she had struck him in the mouth with all her might and -followed through like any man. - -Provine roared and swore and came for her again, head down and small -eyes blazing. - -“Now,” he said, “I’ll have to hand you discipline, you damned -hell-cat!” - - * * * * * - -So the night that was so full of portent dropped down upon the -country of the Deep Heart hills and Destiny rode the winds. - -Sky Line Ranch was stirring early, even before the first grey light -had touched the east. - -There was much afoot. Bossick’s steers were going down the Pipe that -day—and perhaps Sud Provine and Nance Allison would go with them, -bound for the Big Bend country in Texas whence the man had hailed. - -“I think she’ll sign this morning,” said Arnold easily as he sat -down to Josefa’s steaming breakfast by lamplight, “and keep her -mouth shut, too.” - -In the shielding clump of pines Bossick waited for Fair’s signal -somewhere inside the cliff. - -Not so far down the great slope of Mystery Rod Stone was climbing up -with the Cordova men behind him and Minnie Pine like his shadow at -his side. - -And deep in the heart of the earth Brand Fair was slowly forging -upward toward that coup of justice for which he had labored so long -and patiently. - -There was excitement in him and exultation and a certain grim joy, -for he knew the man he wanted was at Sky Line Ranch and that he was -about to lay upon him and Kate Cathrew the stern hand of the law. - -Not least of the actors in the coming play, set to function on the -stage of Rainbow’s Pot, was Bud Allison urging his exhausted horse -slowly up toward Sky Line. - - * * * * * - -False dawn had come and passed. The short darkness following was -shot now with pale light above the distant rim. - -There was a cold breeze blowing when Arnold and Kate Cathrew rode -along the rock face to the Flange. They spoke in low tones to Big -Basford standing like an image and slipped into the wall. They rode -in silence down the defile, dark as Erebus and full of wind, and -came out into the amphitheatre where the pale light was breaking. - -The trees stood like tall gnomes, humped and darkly draped. - -Here and there on the sloping floor the cattle lay in quiet groups, -while a little way apart Buckskin and Silvertip browsed -industriously. - -At first they saw no sign of anything human in all the shadowy -place. Arnold’s keen eyes swept the Pot from side to side, while -Cattle Kate’s went slowly round the wall. - -“That’s funny,” said the man, “Provine——” - -“Look,” said Kate, “over toward the left—against the cliff.” - -The light in the east struck first at the western face of the -precipice, so that an object standing back against the perpendicular -surface got its full benefit. - -Arnold bent forward in his saddle and looked long at this object. - -It was very still, a point of prominence in the shadows, and its -very immobility gave it a certain grimness. - -Then he touched his horse and rode forward. - -“Good Lord!” he said as he pulled rein a distance from it, “Good -Lord!” - -For the object was Nance Allison—or what had been Nance Allison some -few hours back. - -Now it was a tragic wreck of a woman whose garments hung in -fantastic shreds upon her body, whose white skin shone through in -many places and whose great eyes gleamed from her ghastly face with -awful light. One long gold braid of hair hung from her head in a -dangling loop. The other was loose to its roots and swept in a -ragged flag to her hip. Long wisps of it shone here and there upon -the trampled grass around. - -And over her from head to foot was blood—blood in clots and streaks -and splotches, while from a small gash on her temple a red stream -slowly dripped. - -The man was awed for once in his relentless life. - -“Heaven!” he said, “what have you done? Where’s Provine?” - -“Dead, I hope,” said Nance Allison dully. - -Arnold struck his horse and dashed away, riding here and there as if -he must know the ghastly finish quickly. - -For a while it seemed that the man was gone entirely. - -Then suddenly his horse shied from something moving in the deep -grass by a spring and Arnold dismounted. - -He had found Provine—Sud Provine rolling in agony, his face in the -mud. With no gentle hand he grasped his shoulder and pulled him up. - -“What’s all this?” he rasped. “What’s the matter with you?” - -For answer Provine took his hands from the left side of his face and -looked up at his master. - -Arnold dropped him back with an oath, which Provine echoed. - -“Gone!” he cried hoarsely, “gouged—slick an’ clean! An’ she tried to -get ’em both—damn her hussy’s soul!” - -Arnold rode slowly back to where that grotesque caricature of a -woman still stood by the wall. She seemed immovable as the rock -itself, part and parcel of the waiting world and the grey shadows. - -“You young hellion!” he gritted through his teeth, “you have blinded -my best man!” - -“Have so,” said Nance, still in that dull voice, “yes—I have so.” -She nodded her dishevelled head. - -“Oh, what’s the use to fool with her!” cried Kate Cathrew furiously, -“I’m done!” - -With a flare of her unbridled temper she snatched her gun from its -saddle-loops and flung it up. - -As her finger curled on the trigger Arnold plunged his horse against -Bluefire. - -“No!” he cried as the report rang out clear and sharp in the thin -air of dawn. The bullet struck with a vicious “phwit” ten feet above -its mark, and a little rain of rock dust fell on Nance’s hair. - -From all the sides of Rainbow’s Pot that shot came back in echoes, a -roaring fusillade—and Bossick, waiting in his clump of pines, -straightened in his saddle. He picked up his hanging rein and spoke -in a low Voice. - -“Ready, men?” he asked, “then let’s go.” - -Cattle Kate had fired her own signal of fate and her enemies heard -it. - -Brand Fair heard it in the strange dark passage far down in the -heart of Mystery Ridge. Rod Stone, climbing the stiff slopes, heard -it, and so did the boy on the staggering horse a little farther over -toward Sky Line. He altered his course a bit toward the west. - -“What do you mean?” said Arnold sharply, “would you kill her before -she signs the paper? Or after—and have the finger of the law point -at the new owner of the flats? Use your wits.” - -“I have,” said Kate sullenly, “and have gotten nowhere. And she has -defied me.” - -“She has defied us all,” replied Arnold with reluctant admiration, -“she has been charmed, it seems.” - -“Kill her—and the old woman will take the boy and go,” said Kate, -“she’s the stubborn element. I warn you now—she must never go out of -this place alive. She knows us now.” - -“Unless she goes down the Pipe with this morning’s drive—the boys -should soon be here to start.” - -“She will come back.” - -“Not if I send Basford to take her over the Line.” - -“Enough!” said Kate, “I’m uneasy about the whole thing—the -brushed-out tracks at the mouth of the Pipe——” - -“A trifle. And the boys will soon be here. Hark—they’re coming now.” - -There was a sound in the rock face, a shout and the rumble of -horses’ feet hurrping. - -The man and the woman looked that way—to behold Big Basford come -boiling from the narrow opening with a string of men behind him. The -grey light had given place to the rose of sunrise, and the riders -who came so swiftly out of the wall were plainly visible. - -“Hell’s fire!” whispered Cattle Kate Cathrew. - -Like a Nemesis, Bossick and the ranchers behind him pushed Big -Basford down the sloping floor of Rainbow’s Pot. - -“A plant!” screamed the latter, “we’re caught! We’re caught!” - -A hundred feet away Bossick stopped. - -His angry eyes flashed over Arnold and the woman beside him, then -scanned the green basin where the peaceful cattle lay. - -“It would seem, Miss Cathrew,” he said, “that you are—caught. Caught -with the goods at last. Yonder are my missing steers if I can read -my own brand. It looks like the B Bar K to me.” - -Kate Cathrew wet her lips and her hand moved restlessly on the -rifle’s butt. She did not speak, but her black eyes burned like -coals in her chalk-white face. - -Bossick threw back his coat. A star shone faintly in the light. - -“You can thank Sheriff Selwood’s tireless work for this,” he said, -“and so can we. The whole country’s deputized. Your work is known. -You may as well give up without a fuss for we——” - -He stopped, for an odd sound had become apparent—a deep, echoing -sound, as of many waters beating on a hollow shore. - -It seemed to come from the center of the amphitheatre where the cave -mouth yawned. - -For a second the whole group was silent. - -Then Kate Cathrew flung round to stare with wide orbs at the mouth -of the Pipe. Her world was falling about her and she was appalled. - -The roar of waters became the rumble of hoofs and up from the bowels -of the earth came Brand Fair and his men. - -He blinked in the new light and then his dark eyes went unerringly -to the face of the woman—this woman whom he had sought for two full -years. - -“Good morning, Katherine Fair,” he said. - -Far over by the rock face Nance Allison leaned forward, in her -bloody rags and raised a hand slowly to her throat. - -The dullness in her clouded brain struggled with her natural -keenness for mastery and lost. - -Up from the abysmal depths of physical exhaustion which encompassed -her came that spirit which had not yet been conquered. - -“You!” screamed Cattle Kate, “You! You! It was _you_ who did the -trick—not that fool Selwood! I might have guessed!” - -Fair sat still and looked at her and at the man beside her whose -face was a study. - -“Sure you might have guessed,” he said. “When you and your paramour -there robbed the Consolidated and wound the coils of guilt around -Jack Fair—you might have guessed that his brother would follow you -to the ends of the earth to get you. And he’s _got you_—got you dead -to rights.” - -He, too, showed a deputy’s star. - -“Jack Fair died in prison—of shame and of a broken heart. For three -years I worked in New York to get the goods on you, Arnold, and -never could—definitely. Then I hired a better man who could—and did. -I have a precious package in a safe place with enough proof in it to -have sent you over long ago—but I wanted you both—together—a grand -finale. It has been a long trail—long—for me—and for Sonny, the -child whom you abandoned, Kate, five years ago.” - -The woman gasped and raised a clinched fist to let it fall in -impotent rage. Fair went on. - -“I’ve lived for months in Blue Stone Cañon. It was I who found where -the willows _blow out_ from the wall. It was Sheriff Selwood who -took his life in his hand to help your men drive Bossick’s steers -into Rainbow Cliff. It was all of us together, as you see us here, -who put two and two together and determined to get you—and to get -you good—you and all your outfit of rustlers—all of whom owe -something to Lawrence Arnold yonder. We’ve picketed the mouth of -your passage into Blue Stone and would have caught you there—or -rather at Marston, where I have had arrangements made for some time. -We’ve been holding off for Selwood’s word—he’s worked too faithfully -all these years to lose the credit now.” - -Not once had Fair taken his eyes from Kate Cathrew’s face, else he -might have seen the tragic figure by the wall at the right, the -grotesque woman whose blood-stained features worked with hysterical -laughter. - -“Brother!” whispered Nance Allison to herself, “it was his -brother—not—not—himself! Oh. Lord, I—thank Thee!” - -Neither did he see the newcomers streaming through the cut into the -basin—the men from Cordova under Rod Stone. - -Minnie Pine’s black eyes went flashing round the Pot to light -instantly upon the figure of the girl. - -“Poor Eagle Eyes!” she said to Stone, “she has walked in hell!” - -There was one other actor in the small drama whom no one noticed—Bud -Allison, on foot now, since Big Dan stood at the base of the last -rise, completely done—Bud Allison dragging his lame foot wearily, -his Pappy’s old gun on his shoulder. - -The boy stood between the last riders and the wall, looking at them -all with puzzled eyes. Brand Fair continued: - -“While we are about this we’ll finish it completely. I want the men -of Nameless and the Upper Country to know just what sort of -criminals they have been dealing with—to know that Lawrence Arnold -there is a clever New York lawyer who defends guilty men and frees -them—by buying juries. That he is getting rich by selling through -agents and aids the cattle which you, Kate, steal here, drive into -the river, up to the cliff, down this wonderful underground passage -into Blue Stone Cañon and out across the desert to Marston for the -shipping. It has been an amazing system in a more amazing setting. -The mystery of the steers that left no tracks is solved by the fact -that every time you stole a big herd you drove them _up_ the night -before you drove your own brand _down_—therefore, they left no -trace. Also, I want to say here and now before these witnesses, that -all the money you brought with you into the Deep Heart hills -belonged to poor Jack Fair, the father of your child—the man you -betrayed into prison through the devilish legal trap laid by -Lawrence Arnold—and that is why I’ve followed you. Sonny Fair has a -right to his father’s property—and I intend to see that he gets it. -Have you anything to say?” - -Lawrence Arnold, trapped and conscious of the fact, wet his thin -lips and glanced desperately around. He saw only stern faces, cold -and angry eyes. - -But Cattle Kate Cathrew was made of different stuff. She flung up -her clenched fists and shook them at the clear skies where the rose -of dawn was spreading. - -“You ——!” she swore, “I always hated your narrow eyes and that mouth -of yours! So _you_ are the prospector, Smith, who has been so -inquisitive at Cordova! It was you who shot Big Basford in the -hand!” - -Fair nodded. - -“To see fair play,” he said. - -“And it is you who’ve done all this! Oh, damn your soul to hell!” - -She dropped her hands, caught the rein hanging on Bluefire’s neck, -struck her heels to his flanks and quick as thought whirled him away -toward the cut. The group between her and the entrance fell -floundering apart before the stallion’s charge. - -With a dozen leaps she almost reached the wall. - -“You can’t get away with this, Brand Fair!” she screamed, “I’m a -match for you!” and jerked at her rifle in its loops. - -In her rage she was inept, so that the weapon caught, hindering her -purpose for a moment. - -But that purpose was clear to several in the intense group of -watchers—to Rod Stone—to Fair himself—and to one other. - -Nance Allison, standing in her trampled spot, knew that the moment -she had dreaded for so long was come. Knew that danger threatened at -last some one whom she loved—the stark danger of death—and as if -something broke within her, the “stirrings” crystalized. Without -taking her eyes from the frantic woman on the big blue horse, she -began to feel with her foot for something in the grass—something -long and dark and cold, but which seemed to her now more precious -and to be desired than anything upon the earth—namely, Sud Provine’s -rifle. - -It seemed, all suddenly, as if the feel of a gun in her hands had -been with her from birth, as if she had leaped the years between and -was a daughter of the feudal mountaineers who had marked her Pappy’s -line. - -Gone was all the stern restraint, the earnest supplication to be -kept from spilling blood. The hatred which had smouldered in her -leaped to its fulfillment. - -For herself and hers she had borne all things—lost hope and poverty, -and the deadening weariness of gigantic labors. - -She had believed in the hand of God that had been her shield and -buckler, had been patient in adversity, meek in her dogged courage. - -Now, as Kate Cathrew clawed for a weapon to kill Brand Fair sitting -on his horse at the cave’s mouth, she was become a killer herself, -joying in the fact. - -Her foot touched the rifle. - -She bent and took it up. - -As Cattle Kate straightened in her saddle, Nance dropped stiffly to -her knee and raised the gun. - -Her blue eyes caught the sights and drew down steadily upon the -woman’s heart. - -Just so had those forgotten Allisons drawn down upon their enemies -in the Kentucky hills. - -Her finger touched the trigger. - -And here the hand of destiny reached down—or was it the hand of -God?—and ordered the puppets playing out their little tragedy in the -heart of Rainbow Cliff. - -As Kate Cathrew flung up her gun the furious rage that fired her -stiffened body in the saddle, shot her bolt upright, standing in her -stirrups. - -Perhaps some unaccustomed pressure of her posture angered -him—perhaps the excitement of the moment loosed something wild in -his hybrid heart—perhaps it was something else. - -The bearded man from the Upper Country said afterwards it was. - -At any rate, with the woman’s spectacular and dramatic action, -Bluefire, the stallion, who hated her but obeyed her, gave one -scream and rose with her. - -It was a magnificent leap, high spread-eagling, with the flowing -silver cloud of his mane tossing in the rosy light. - -From the peak of its arc the woman, good rider though she was, but -taken by surprise, fell loose from her stirrups, cascading in a -flare of booted feet straight down his hips and tail. - -At the same moment two shots rang out—her own and Nance’s both gone -wild with Bluefire’s interference. - -Still on his hind feet, the stallion whirled, turning once more -toward the cut in the wall, and came down—his shod forefeet full -upon her breast. He leaped over her body and was gone, his empty -saddle shining with its vanity of silver. - -A silence of death fell for a moment in the peaceful Pot. - -Then two men moved. - -McKane, the trader who leaped from his horse and knelt by Kate -Cathrew, and Big Basford who flung up his arms and shook his clawing -fingers toward the western wall. - -“You killed her!” he shrieked, “You yellow devil—you’ve killed Kate -Cathrew! And I’ll kill you!” - -He kicked his horse viciously and shot forward. - -Bud Allison, the boy whom none had noticed, raised his Pappy’s gun -and fired. - -Big Basford toppled to the left and slid out of his saddle with an -audible grunt. He rolled over, shook his good fist toward the serene -skies, and was still. - -Slowly the group drew in to look at Cattle Kate lying so quietly -after the storm. - -McKane was holding her hand between his own and murmuring foolish, -endearing words. Lawrence Arnold pushed him aside with an oath. - - * * * * * - -But Brand Fair turned his eyes for the first time toward that -farther wall. For a moment he did not recognize the creature which -knelt there, the smoking rifle across its knee, its face covered -with both hands. - -Then something familiar in the drooping shoulders, the ragged veil -of shining hair, struck home to him. - -Without a word he went forward and dismounted. - -Incredulously he stooped and took the hands away. - -Wide eyed he looked at her. - -“Nance!” he cried in horror, “Nance—Nance—Nance! God Almighty! -What’s this?” - -“I am forsaken of my God,” said the girl piteously, “I had to kill -her—or she’d have killed you!” - -“You didn’t,” said Fair sharply, “the stallion killed her. Your shot -went wild.” - -She looked at him dully, uncomprehending, and Fair repeated his -words. As she realized their import her lips began to quiver, she -rolled down upon the trampled grass with her face to the sod, and -wept. - -Brand Fair, knowing that this matter was between her soul and its -Maker, wisely did not attempt to comfort her. - -He sat with his hand on her heaving shoulder and watched the tragic -scene. - -Bossick and his men surrounded Arnold. Big Basford was dead. And -here was Nance Allison in Rainbow’s Pot at dawn, ghastly with blood -and weariness. - -A thousand questions burned in his brain, but he waited. - -From the right Rod Stone was coming forward, followed by the -half-breed girl and the rest of the men from Cordova. - - * * * * * - -Bossick took Stone into custody and called to Bud Allison who came -limping forward, his blue eyes glittering with defiance. - -Fair stooped and lifting Nance bodily carried her into the heart of -the group. - -“Men,” he said, “here’s something more to add to our score against -Sky Line. Look!” - -They looked in astonishment. - -“Great Scott!” said Bossick wonderingly, “It’s Miss Allison, ain’t -it? What’s she doing here?” - -“That’s a question I’ll ask Lawrence Arnold,” said Fair in a voice -like a blade, but the bearded man from the Upper Country spoke up -promptly. - -“I think young Stone and Minnie Pine can answer that, since that is -why we’re here. Speak, Stone.” - -The rider shook his head. - -“Let Minnie,” he said, “she was first to know about it.” - -All eyes turned to the Pomo girl, among those of Lawrence Arnold, -still holding in his arms the body of Kate Cathrew, and they were -cruel as a hawk’s. - -“I listened,” said Minnie calmly, “I always listened when there was -devil’s talk at Sky Line. I’ve heard much. This time the Sun Woman -yonder stood in the Inner Room where they had brought her, and gave -back in their teeth the words of the Boss and the Master. They -wanted her to sign her mother’s name to a paper which would give to -Kate Cathrew the homestead on Nameless——” - -“Great Scott!” said Bossick again. - -“She wouldn’t,” went on Minnie, “and so they gave her to Sud Provine -to keep all night in Rainbow’s Pot, with Big Basford standing guard -outside.” - -There was the sound of an indrawn breath from Fair. - -“We know Provine, Rod Stone and me,” continued the girl, “and so we -went to Cordova for help to get her out. We had to wait so long to -get away from Sky Line——” - -“But they came, men,” cut in the bearded man, “don’t forget that in -the final settlement. They dared Arnold and Cattle Kate to save a -woman’s honor—and that’s no small thing.” - -“Shucks!” said Stone disgustedly, “what would any half-man do?” - -Fair stood Nance upon her feet. - -She raised her unspeakable head and glanced at the tense faces. - -“Where’s this Provine? Tell us, Nance,” said Fair still in that -thin, hard voice. He hitched his holster a little farther forward on -his thigh. - -“I don’t know,” she said. “I tore his face to ribbons—I’d have -killed him if I could. He crawled that way.” - -She nodded toward the north. - -Fair loosed her gently and was turning away, when Bossick caught his -arm. - -“Hold hard, Smith—Mr. Fair,” he said, “not in your condition. -Jermyn—go see what you can find. In the meantime—there’s Big -Basford. The boy was quick——” - -Here Rod Stone broke in, speaking frankly. - -“I’d like to say men, that when young Allison killed Big Basford he -got the man who threw his father down Rainbow Cliff and stretched -the rope that lamed _him_. John Allison had found the only outside -way to the rim and was looking down into the Pot here, when Basford -went to meet him.” - -For a long moment there was silence. - -“It would seem to me,” said Bossick slowly, “that there has been a -deal of justice done here this day—a very great deal of justice. -It’s destiny.” - -Nance Allison looked up at him with a light in her blue eyes. - -“It’s the hand of God, Mr. Bossick,” she said gravely, “no less.” - -The rancher nodded. - -“Maybe,” he said, as Jermyn and several others who had accompanied -him, came back across the basin with Sud Provine among them. - -One look at the man was sufficient. - -“I guess he’s had all that was coming to him for the present,” said -Bossick grimly. “Take him along to the house. We’ll go gather in the -rest.” - -And so, in the full day, with the risen sun touching all the -tapestried slopes of Mystery with gold, Cattle Kate Cathrew went -back to her stronghold under the tinted cliff—went in state with a -retinue behind her. - -She had died as she had lived, spectacularly, and her turbulent soul -should have been satisfied. - -With her went one man who had loved her after his selfish fashion, -another who would have crawled in the dust to kiss her feet, while a -third, borne rolling limply on a saddle, followed after more closely -than any other. - -The young cowboy from the Upper Country absent-mindedly rolled a -cigarette. - -“She was worth it,” he said softly to the bearded man beside him, -“in spite of all!” - -“Hell!” said the other, “look yonder! One square foot of his satin -hide was worth her whole body! I always thought he’d get her, some -time, some way. I’m going to dig up my last dollar an’ buy him from -whoever owns him now.” - -Bluefire stood against the cliff, watching with interested eyes this -strange procession passing. - - * * * * * - -Another spring was smiling on the Deep Heart hills. - -On the broad slopes, the towering slants, the conifers sang their -everlasting song, tuned by the little winds from the south. - -White clouds sailed the vault above leading their shadows for a -little space upon the soft green country. - -On the wide brown flats by Nameless the young crops were springing, -vigorous and safe, and some few herds browsed peacefully on the -rugged range. - -In the doorway of the cabin by the river, Nance Fair sat with Sonny -in her lap, watching the slope beyond. - -“Won’t Brand be coming soon?” the child wanted to know. “The Rainbow -Cliff is shining, so it’s getting late.” - -“Soon—very soon, honey,” said Nance smilingly, “I heard Dirk bark in -the buck-brush yonder a little while ago.” - -In the room beyond Mrs. Allison rocked contentedly. - -“Nance,” she said, “you know this here carpet always makes me think -of the floor of the woods, somehow, with its brown an’ white. It’s -so fresh an’ fair an’ soft.” - -“That’s why I got that warp,” said Nance happily, “I felt it -would—and it does so. Yes, it does so. Run, Sonny—yonder’s Brand and -Bud!” - -Brand and Bud, riding up from the waters of Nameless in the evening -haze, Diamond and Buckskin drawing long breaths of satisfaction at -the sight of home. - -Nance rose and waited for the lean dark man who swung down and came -to her with Sonny on his shoulder. As he stooped to lay his lips to -hers he looked long and tenderly into her blue eyes. - -“Heart of my heart!” he whispered. - -“How’s all, Brand?” called the mother as she spread a cloth on the -scoured table preparatory to “feeding her men-folk” as she phrased -it. - -Brand Fair hung his hat on a nail and turned to the well as Bud came -whistling up the path. - -“Fine, Mammy,” he called back, “everything at Sky Line’s doing well. -Rod and Minnie make things move, and I can trust them. The only -thing that jars is old Josefa who never fails to tell me that all -half-breeds are fools, and that white men can’t be trusted. And then -she bakes an extra pie for Rod and smiles at Minnie proudly. -Yes—all’s well. All’s well on Nameless, eh, old-timer?” - -And swinging the boy once more to his shoulder, he followed young -Bud in across the sill. - - - -***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NAMELESS RIVER*** - - -******* This file should be named 63164-0.txt or 63164-0.zip ******* - - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/6/3/1/6/63164 - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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