“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.