“My gracious! Was I whimpering, Sonny?” she asked aghast, “I must be getting pretty far gone, as Brand says. Nance was thinking, that’s all—thinking about bad things that make her heart ache.” “Our enemies?” he asked quaintly. She nodded. “Yes—they’re ours, all right. Yours and Brand’s and mine.” There was a vague comfort in this association, in the common cause that seemed to bind her and hers to Brand and Sonny Fair. Brand and Sonny Fair—her thoughts went off on the tangent which those two names always started. It was part of the trouble which made the frown habitual—the frown, so alien to the sweet and open face of this girl. Always there was under the surface of her mind the running question—What was Brand Fair to Sonny? And always there lurked in the dim background the word—Father. Was it true? Was the child his son? And if it was true—where and who was the mother? A deep and terrible ache seemed to take her very bones at this thought—a misery which she could not understand. She shook herself and sighed and tried to smile down at the boy, but the effort was a failure. “Nance,” he asked soberly, “don’t you love me any more?” The girl dropped on her knees and gathered him to her breast in a fierce gesture. “Love you? Honey child, Nance loves every inch of your little body! She loves you so well she’s scared to death Brand will come along some day and want to take you away again!” She sat back on her heels and smiled at him, this time successfully. If there was one spot of light in the darkness of her troubles it was the child. Always his pleading eyes, his shy caresses could lighten the load. And so it was that presently she fell to laughing in her old light-hearted way, sitting back on her heels on the clean white floor and rolling the child this way and that. Screams of delight from Sonny punctuated the strokes of his bare feet as he kicked in the hysterical ecstasy of Nance’s fingers “creep-mous”-ing up his little ribs. They did not see Bud standing in the door, so absorbed in their game were they, until he moved and his shadow fell across them. Nance turned her laughing face up to him—and stared with the laughter set upon it. The boy was white as milk, his eyes black with terrible portent. “Bud,” she cried, “what’s up? What——” “The rustlers were out last night,” he said slowly with a strange hesitation—“I met Old Man Conlan going down to Cordova—a man was shot—they think it is—the prospector—Smith.” For a moment Nance sat still on her heels, her mouth open, the sickly lines of laughter still around it. Then she put out a hand that was beginning to shake—like an aged hand with palsy. “Smith?” she gasped, “that’s—Brand Fair! Oh—oh—dear Lord—_Brand Fair_!” For the first time in her life the bright sunlight faded out and Nance Allison, who had fought so long and hard against tremendous odds,—who had held her battle line and borne all things with the courage of a strong man swayed back upon the floor.