“What do you think, doctor?” he asked anxiously of the medical man brought in from Bement.
“Frankly, I don’t think,” said that , “these , superinduced by , are things. He may recover suddenly, or he may die without 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 held at which grim and men sat their horses and pledged themselves to do a certain thing.
Then Fair went to the cabin on Nameless, for the in his heart to see 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 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 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 his reason that he may tell us where to strike.”
“There’ll be gun-play and—blood,” said Nance , “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 which has stirred in me so long, is getting beyond my strength to hold it! I’ll go mad and turn , Brand if they kill you! I know it—I feel it here——” she laid hands on her heart—“and then my soul will go into the pit of damnation.”
“!” 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 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, , “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 but now—when I think of you—I feel my strength desert me.”
“Buck up,” the man playfully, “we’ll all come through with colors flying and see this nest of caged. Then think of life on Nameless, Nance—safe and happy, with our fields and our 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 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 .
“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 ruin of her cornfield, crossed the river, low in its summer , and struck up among the buck-brush and manzanita that clothes the lower slopes.
It was a sweet blue day with the summer on 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 smiled, the heavens, blue and flecked with sailing clouds, were soft as infants’ eyes.
Nature opened appealing arms to this child of her and Nance, sad and 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 beauty. She watched the cloud-shadows drifting on the shoulders of the mountains and knew the sight for what it was of privilege and .
So, as the little horse beneath her eagerly up the , 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 . 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 ! 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 of deer, came out above a spring in a pretty .
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 water, drank long and eagerly a foot from Buckskin’s .
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 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’ 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 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 stroke.
“Then you’ll have to take me,” she said , “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 .
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 from her face, leaving it pale as wax. Her lips were faintly .
“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 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 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 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 .
She noticed how the buck-brush and manzanita had given place to 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 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 , 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 when they rode out of the of pines and saw the ranch house sitting low and spreading above its high , in the open.
At the broad steps to the right Nance was ordered to dismount.
Provine took Buckskin and Caldwell motioned her to 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 at the she .
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CHAPTER XIX RIDERS OF PORTENT
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