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.”
