* * * * * The summer drowsed along on Nameless, sweet with sun and the little winds that stirred the pine tops, green with verdure and starred with wild flowers. The lonesome world of the jumbled hills was fair as Paradise, wistful with silence, mysterious with its suggestion of eternal waiting. To Nance Allison, sitting listlessly on her doorstep, it seemed strangely empty. There was nothing to do, now that the heavy labor of the haying was over. She watched her three big stacks with sombre eyes, expecting each morning to find them destroyed, but nothing happened to them. Bud carried his father’s rifle now and day after day he went morosely into the hills after venison. “Got to hang up enough meat for winter,” he told Nance when she looked at him with troubled eyes. “Got to remember that Commandment which says ‘Thou shalt not kill,’” she answered. “Brand said to carry the gun.” “Brand said ‘defend’—not ‘murder.’ Hold hard, Bud. We’ve kept clean so far.” “Yes—and what’ve we got? A grave—and _this_.” He shrugged his sagging shoulder. Quick tears came in Nance’s eyes and she laid a hand upon it with infinite tenderness. “I know,” she said, “but somehow I still have faith. We’ll come out free some day.” “Perhaps—free like our Pappy.” “God forbid!” said the girl with trembling lips. CHAPTER XV THE FLANGE IN RAINBOW CLIFF It was getting along into August. In every cup and hollow of the Deep Heart hills the forage was deep and plentiful. Cattle, scattered through the broken country, waxed sleek and fat. They had nothing to do but fill their paunches in the sunlit glades and chew their cuds on the shadowed slopes. Bossick, riding his range one day, came upon Big Basford and Sud Provine ambling down toward the upper reaches of Nameless. Their horses were tired, giving evidence of hard going, and the cattleman stopped and looked at them with hostile eyes. “Pretty far off your stamping ground, ain’t you?” he asked. Provine grinned. He was a slow-moving individual with a bad black eye and a reputation with the gun that always rode his thigh, though he had been mild enough on Nameless. It was the little wimple of trailing whispers which had come into the country behind him that had put the brand upon him. “Are so,” he answered insolently, “but hit’s free range land at that, ain’t it?” “In theory, yes,” said Bossick, “but it’s about time practice changed matters. I’m about fed up on theory—and so are a few others in this man’s country. I’d take it well if you and all your outfit stayed on the south side of Mystery where you belong. Your stock don’t range this far in the Upper Country.” “Is that so,” drawled the other, “an’ who says so?”