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.