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. here 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.”
