“She’s handsome,” said Nance frankly, “not large, but pretty-made as you find them. She has black hair and black eyes and a mouth as red as a flower, and she is always frowning. She’s a good shot—so good that I’m not much scared when she sends a ball whining over my head as I plow my field.” “Good God!” shot out Fair, “does she do that?” Nance nodded. “She’s done so twice. She’s my enemy, I tell you. And so are all her riders. Strange things have happened to us—bitter things. There was the rope in the trail that threw Bud down the gulch—he’s never walked straight since. There was the fire that took my last year’s hay—and there was the harness. It seems I can’t forgive that harness—it set us back in debt to McKane at the store. Bud—Bud—he’s out of it. There could be no thought of forgiveness in that. If I was a man—just an ordinary man——” The girl leaned forward with a doubled fist striking the cañon’s floor. “If I was a man and knew who stretched that rope—I’m deadly afraid I’d kill him.” Fair nodded in understanding. “I fear that in me,” Nance went on earnestly, “that thing which seems to flare and make me hot all over when I think of Bud. I pray against it every night of my life. Mammy says it’s feud in my heart—and I say so, too.” For a long time the man studied her face. “Yes,” he said presently, “there’s something in you that would fight—but it would take something terrible to break it loose from leash—some cataclysmic emergency.” “Danger,” she said quickly, “that’s what’d loose it, danger to some one I love, like Bud or Mammy. I know it, and am afraid.” “Why afraid?” asked Fair quietly, “if you had to do it, why fear the necessary issue?” “Because,” she answered solemnly, “the Bible says ‘Thou shalt not kill.’” A certain embarrassment seemed to overtake the man for a moment and he dropped his eyes to his cigarette, turning it over and over in his fingers. “That’s as you look at it, I suppose,” he said, “to every person his limits and inhibitions.” “But let’s not talk of feuds and killings,” said Nance, laughing brightly as she hugged the child and rubbed his tousled head. “What do you think of our country—Nameless River and the Deep Heart hills?” “Beautiful. Sonny and I have traveled over many a thousand miles in the last two years, and we have yet to see a place more lovely—or lonely.” “And can you hear the voices in the cañon? You have to be still a long time—and then, after a while, they get louder and louder, as if a great concourse of people were talking all at once.” “You have a strange and weird conception, Miss Allison,” said Fair, “but I know what you mean. We hear them at night, Sonny and I.” “And that’s what I want to speak about, Mr. Fair,” said Nance hesitatingly, “I’ve thought at nights about Sonny—alone—hearing the voices. Have you thought what it might mean to a child?” The man smoked awhile in silence. “Yes,” he said at last, “I have. But it seems unavoidable. I have no place else to leave him.”