CONCLUSION
When Nance Allison mounted Buckskin at Kate Cathrew’s door a
terrible weight hung at her heart, yet a current of strength seemed
flowing in her veins.
“‘The Lord is the strength of my life,’” she thought valiantly, “‘of
whom shall I be afraid?’”
The courage of the familiar words had been with her through many
bitter trials—it did not fail her now.
But she was not conscious that she no longer called upon her Maker
for help to bear, to be patient under persecution, or that she ran a
hand along the muscle of her right arm testing its quality.
Rather there was intensified in her that slow itch of wrath which
had swept away humility.
So she rode in silence with Provine’s lascivious eyes upon her from
behind, and Big Basford glowering in self-centered inattention
ahead.
The way led close along the foot of Rainbow Cliff among the
weathered debris which sifted always down the rock face, and
presently she was amazed to see the wall itself seem to slice in
between Basford and herself, and in another second she was riding
into a very narrow defile in the living stone with Provine close
upon her horse’s heels. There was just room for horse and rider in
the echoing aisle and none to spare. It was dimly lighted by what
seemed a crack in the earth’s surface high up among the clouds. The
girl looked up in wonder.
This, she knew, was the secret of Rainbow Cliff and Mystery Ridge.
Despite her danger she noted the passage with keen interest. The way
was short for in a few minutes the rock-walled cut turned sharply to
the right and ended abruptly.
Before her startled vision lay spread out a little paradise, round
as a cup, green with tender grass, dotted with oak and poplar trees
beside its countless springs—and grazing contentedly on its
peculiarly rank forage was a band of cattle, each one of which bore
on its left the “B. K.” of Bossick’s brand!
But stranger than all this was the straight high wall of tinted
stone which completely encircled the spot, with no opening other
than the one through which she and her guard had entered.
This, then, was Rainbow’s Pot of which Arnold had spoken.
In utter astonishment she drew Buckskin up and looked at the “secret
spot” of Sky Line Ranch.
It was fair to the eye, the ear and the nostril, for the sunlight
fell warm upon its farther side, the songs of a myriad birds made
music in the trees and the still air was drenched with the scent of
some nameless flower.
It was not until she had taken it all in with a slowly comprehensive
glance that she became conscious of something strange in its
formation, namely—the tendency of the green-clad floor to slope from
all sides smoothly down to the center where there seemed to be a
cave with an overhanging edge.
This slanting hole was dark in the midst of the green with the late
light upon it, like the sinister entrance to some underground
cavern.
“Well,” said Provine amusedly, “how do you like it?”
The girl did not reply, but sat still with her hands crossed on her
saddle horn.
The snaky eyes under the black brows lost their drowsy pleasantry.
“I wouldn’t advise you, purty,” he said, “to come the
high-and-mighty with me. A little kindness, now, would go a long way
towards an understandin’. Get off that horse.”
Without a word Nance obeyed.
A little cold touch was at her inmost heart, but that tight, tense
feeling of strength was still with her. She measured Provine’s
shoulders with her eyes as he unsaddled the animals and turned them
out to graze. She looked at his long arms, his lean and sinewy back.
“I’ve handled my plow all spring,” she said to herself sagely, “I
pitched hay all day and was not too tired at night. I can lift a
grain sack easy. I’ll sell out hard if I have to—for Mammy and Brand
and Bud and Sonny.”
And when Provine turned and come toward her, smiling, he was met by
blue eyes that were hard as shining stone, a mouth like a line of
battle and hands clutched hard on folded arms.
“Oh, ho,” he said, “we’re goin’ to butt our head agin a wall, ain’t
we? Cut it, kid, an’ kiss me—you might as well now as later. An’
besides, I don’t like a mouth all mashed up from discipline.”
“The hand of God,” said the big girl stiffly, “is before my face.
His host is round about me. _I’d_ advise _you_ to let me alone.”
The man threw back his head and laughed.
“I don’t see no host,” he said, “an’ I ain’t superstitious,” and
with a leap he swung one long arm around her neck.
“Help me, Lord!” said Nance aloud, and bowing her young body she
pulled her forehead down his breast and slipped free.
Next moment she had struck him in the mouth with all her might and
followed through like any man.
Provine roared and swore and came for her again, head down and small
eyes blazing.
“Now,” he said, “I’ll have to hand you discipline, you damned
hell-cat!”
* * * * *
So the night that was so full of portent dropped down upon the
country of the Deep Heart hills and Destiny rode the winds.
Sky Line Ranch was stirring early, even before the first grey light
had touched the east.
There was much afoot. Bossick’s steers were going down the Pipe that
day—and perhaps Sud Provine and Nance Allison would go with them,
bound for the Big Bend country in Texas whence the man had hailed.
“I think she’ll sign this morning,” said Arnold easily as he sat
down to Josefa’s steaming breakfast by lamplight, “and keep her
mouth shut, too.”
In the shielding clump of pines Bossick waited for Fair’s signal
somewhere inside the cliff.
Not so far down the great slope of Mystery Rod Stone was climbing up
with the Cordova men behind him and Minnie Pine like his shadow at
his side.
And deep in the heart of the earth Brand Fair was slowly forging
upward toward that coup of justice for which he had labored so long
and patiently.
There was excitement in him and exultation and a certain grim joy,
for he knew the man he wanted was at Sky Line Ranch and that he was
about to lay upon him and Kate Cathrew the stern hand of the law.
Not least of the actors in the coming play, set to function on the
stage of Rainbow’s Pot, was Bud Allison urging his exhausted horse
slowly up toward Sky Line.
* * * * *
False dawn had come and passed. The short darkness following was
shot now with pale light above the distant rim.
There was a cold breeze blowing when Arnold and Kate Cathrew rode
along the rock face to the Flange. They spoke in low tones to Big
Basford standing like an image and slipped into the wall. They rode
in silence down the defile, dark as Erebus and full of wind, and
came out into the amphitheatre where the pale light was breaking.
The trees stood like tall gnomes, humped and darkly draped.
Here and there on the sloping floor the cattle lay in quiet groups,
while a little way apart Buckskin and Silvertip browsed
industriously.
At first they saw no sign of anything human in all the shadowy
place. Arnold’s keen eyes swept the Pot from side to side, while
Cattle Kate’s went slowly round the wall.
“That’s funny,” said the man, “Provine——”
“Look,” said Kate, “over toward the left—against the cliff.”
The light in the east struck first at the western face of the
precipice, so that an object standing back against the perpendicular
surface got its full benefit.
Arnold bent forward in his saddle and looked long at this object.
It was very still, a point of prominence in the shadows, and its
very immobility gave it a certain grimness.
Then he touched his horse and rode forward.
“Good Lord!” he said as he pulled rein a distance from it, “Good
Lord!”
For the object was Nance Allison—or what had been Nance Allison some
few hours back.
Now it was a tragic wreck of a woman whose garments hung in
fantastic shreds upon her body, whose white skin shone through in
many places and whose great eyes gleamed from her ghastly face with
awful light. One long gold braid of hair hung from her head in a
dangling loop. The other was loose to its roots and swept in a
ragged flag to her hip. Long wisps of it shone here and there upon
the trampled grass around.
And over her from head to foot was blood—blood in clots and streaks
and splotches, while from a small gash on her temple a red stream
slowly dripped.
The man was awed for once in his relentless life.
“Heaven!” he said, “what have you done? Where’s Provine?”
“Dead, I hope,” said Nance Allison dully.
Arnold struck his horse and dashed away, riding here and there as if
he must know the ghastly finish quickly.
For a while it seemed that the man was gone entirely.
Then suddenly his horse shied from something moving in the deep
grass by a spring and Arnold dismounted.
He had found Provine—Sud Provine rolling in agony, his face in the
mud. With no gentle hand he grasped his shoulder and pulled him up.
“What’s all this?” he rasped. “What’s the matter with you?”
For answer Provine took his hands from the left side of his face and
looked up at his master.
Arnold dropped him back with an oath, which Provine echoed.
“Gone!” he cried hoarsely, “gouged—slick an’ clean! An’ she tried to
get ’em both—damn her hussy’s soul!”
Arnold rode slowly back to where that grotesque caricature of a
woman still stood by the wall. She seemed immovable as the rock
itself, part and parcel of the waiting world and the grey shadows.
“You young hellion!” he gritted through his teeth, “you have blinded
my best man!”
“Have so,” said Nance, still in that dull voice, “yes—I have so.”
She nodded her dishevelled head.
“Oh, what’s the use to fool with her!” cried Kate Cathrew furiously,
“I’m done!”
With a flare of her unbridled temper she snatched her gun from its
saddle-loops and flung it up.
As her finger curled on the trigger Arnold plunged his horse against
Bluefire.
“No!” he cried as the report rang out clear and sharp in the thin
air of dawn. The bullet struck with a vicious “phwit” ten feet above
its mark, and a little rain of rock dust fell on Nance’s hair.
From all the sides of Rainbow’s Pot that shot came back in echoes, a
roaring fusillade—and Bossick, waiting in his clump of pines,
straightened in his saddle. He picked up his hanging rein and spoke
in a low Voice.
“Ready, men?” he asked, “then let’s go.”
Cattle Kate had fired her own signal of fate and her enemies heard
it.
Brand Fair heard it in the strange dark passage far down in the
heart of Mystery Ridge. Rod Stone, climbing the stiff slopes, heard
it, and so did the boy on the staggering horse a little farther over
toward Sky Line. He altered his course a bit toward the west.
“What do you mean?” said Arnold sharply, “would you kill her before
she signs the paper? Or after—and have the finger of the law point
at the new owner of the flats? Use your wits.”
“I have,” said Kate sullenly, “and have gotten nowhere. And she has
defied me.”
“She has defied us all,” replied Arnold with reluctant admiration,
“she has been charmed, it seems.”
“Kill her—and the old woman will take the boy and go,” said Kate,
“she’s the stubborn element. I warn you now—she must never go out of
this place alive. She knows us now.”
“Unless she goes down the Pipe with this morning’s drive—the boys
should soon be here to start.”
“She will come back.”
“Not if I send Basford to take her over the Line.”
“Enough!” said Kate, “I’m uneasy about the whole thing—the
brushed-out tracks at the mouth of the Pipe——”
“A trifle. And the boys will soon be here. Hark—they’re coming now.”
There was a sound in the rock face, a shout and the rumble of
horses’ feet hurrping.
The man and the woman looked that way—to behold Big Basford come
boiling from the narrow opening with a string of men behind him. The
grey light had given place to the rose of sunrise, and the riders
who came so swiftly out of the wall were plainly visible.
“Hell’s fire!” whispered Cattle Kate Cathrew.
Like a Nemesis, Bossick and the ranchers behind him pushed Big
Basford down the sloping floor of Rainbow’s Pot.
“A plant!” screamed the latter, “we’re caught! We’re caught!”
A hundred feet away Bossick stopped.
His angry eyes flashed over Arnold and the woman beside him, then
scanned the green basin where the peaceful cattle lay.
“It would seem, Miss Cathrew,” he said, “that you are—caught. Caught
with the goods at last. Yonder are my missing steers if I can read
my own brand. It looks like the B Bar K to me.”
Kate Cathrew wet her lips and her hand moved restlessly on the
rifle’s butt. She did not speak, but her black eyes burned like
coals in her chalk-white face.
Bossick threw back his coat. A star shone faintly in the light.
“You can thank Sheriff Selwood’s tireless work for this,” he said,
“and so can we. The whole country’s deputized. Your work is known.
You may as well give up without a fuss for we——”
He stopped, for an odd sound had become apparent—a deep, echoing
sound, as of many waters beating on a hollow shore.
It seemed to come from the center of the amphitheatre where the cave
mouth yawned.
For a second the whole group was silent.
Then Kate Cathrew flung round to stare with wide orbs at the mouth
of the Pipe. Her world was falling about her and she was appalled.
The roar of waters became the rumble of hoofs and up from the bowels
of the earth came Brand Fair and his men.
He blinked in the new light and then his dark eyes went unerringly
to the face of the woman—this woman whom he had sought for two full
years.
“Good morning, Katherine Fair,” he said.
Far over by the rock face Nance Allison leaned forward, in her
bloody rags and raised a hand slowly to her throat.
The dullness in her clouded brain struggled with her natural
keenness for mastery and lost.
Up from the abysmal depths of physical exhaustion which encompassed
her came that spirit which had not yet been conquered.
“You!” screamed Cattle Kate, “You! You! It was _you_ who did the
trick—not that fool Selwood! I might have guessed!”
Fair sat still and looked at her and at the man beside her whose
face was a study.
“Sure you might have guessed,” he said. “When you and your paramour
there robbed the Consolidated and wound the coils of guilt around
Jack Fair—you might have guessed that his brother would follow you
to the ends of the earth to get you. And he’s _got you_—got you dead
to rights.”
He, too, showed a deputy’s star.
“Jack Fair died in prison—of shame and of a broken heart. For three
years I worked in New York to get the goods on you, Arnold, and
never could—definitely. Then I hired a better man who could—and did.
I have a precious package in a safe place with enough proof in it to
have sent you over long ago—but I wanted you both—together—a grand
finale. It has been a long trail—long—for me—and for Sonny, the
child whom you abandoned, Kate, five years ago.”
The woman gasped and raised a clinched fist to let it fall in
impotent rage. Fair went on.
“I’ve lived for months in Blue Stone Cañon. It was I who found where
the willows _blow out_ from the wall. It was Sheriff Selwood who
took his life in his hand to help your men drive Bossick’s steers
into Rainbow Cliff. It was all of us together, as you see us here,
who put two and two together and determined to get you—and to get
you good—you and all your outfit of rustlers—all of whom owe
something to Lawrence Arnold yonder. We’ve picketed the mouth of
your passage into Blue Stone and would have caught you there—or
rather at Marston, where I have had arrangements made for some time.
We’ve been holding off for Selwood’s word—he’s worked too faithfully
all these years to lose the credit now.”
Not once had Fair taken his eyes from Kate Cathrew’s face, else he
might have seen the tragic figure by the wall at the right, the
grotesque woman whose blood-stained features worked with hysterical
laughter.
“Brother!” whispered Nance Allison to herself, “it was his
brother—not—not—himself! Oh. Lord, I—thank Thee!”
Neither did he see the newcomers streaming through the cut into the
basin—the men from Cordova under Rod Stone.
Minnie Pine’s black eyes went flashing round the Pot to light
instantly upon the figure of the girl.
“Poor Eagle Eyes!” she said to Stone, “she has walked in hell!”
There was one other actor in the small drama whom no one noticed—Bud
Allison, on foot now, since Big Dan stood at the base of the last
rise, completely done—Bud Allison dragging his lame foot wearily,
his Pappy’s old gun on his shoulder.
The boy stood between the last riders and the wall, looking at them
all with puzzled eyes. Brand Fair continued:
“While we are about this we’ll finish it completely. I want the men
of Nameless and the Upper Country to know just what sort of
criminals they have been dealing with—to know that Lawrence Arnold
there is a clever New York lawyer who defends guilty men and frees
them—by buying juries. That he is getting rich by selling through
agents and aids the cattle which you, Kate, steal here, drive into
the river, up to the cliff, down this wonderful underground passage
into Blue Stone Cañon and out across the desert to Marston for the
shipping. It has been an amazing system in a more amazing setting.
The mystery of the steers that left no tracks is solved by the fact
that every time you stole a big herd you drove them _up_ the night
before you drove your own brand _down_—therefore, they left no
trace. Also, I want to say here and now before these witnesses, that
all the money you brought with you into the Deep Heart hills
belonged to poor Jack Fair, the father of your child—the man you
betrayed into prison through the devilish legal trap laid by
Lawrence Arnold—and that is why I’ve followed you. Sonny Fair has a
right to his father’s property—and I intend to see that he gets it.
Have you anything to say?”
Lawrence Arnold, trapped and conscious of the fact, wet his thin
lips and glanced desperately around. He saw only stern faces, cold
and angry eyes.
But Cattle Kate Cathrew was made of different stuff. She flung up
her clenched fists and shook them at the clear skies where the rose
of dawn was spreading.
“You ——!” she swore, “I always hated your narrow eyes and that mouth
of yours! So _you_ are the prospector, Smith, who has been so
inquisitive at Cordova! It was you who shot Big Basford in the
hand!”
Fair nodded.
“To see fair play,” he said.
“And it is you who’ve done all this! Oh, damn your soul to hell!”
She dropped her hands, caught the rein hanging on Bluefire’s neck,
struck her heels to his flanks and quick as thought whirled him away
toward the cut. The group between her and the entrance fell
floundering apart before the stallion’s charge.
With a dozen leaps she almost reached the wall.
“You can’t get away with this, Brand Fair!” she screamed, “I’m a
match for you!” and jerked at her rifle in its loops.
In her rage she was inept, so that the weapon caught, hindering her
purpose for a moment.
But that purpose was clear to several in the intense group of
watchers—to Rod Stone—to Fair himself—and to one other.
Nance Allison, standing in her trampled spot, knew that the moment
she had dreaded for so long was come. Knew that danger threatened at
last some one whom she loved—the stark danger of death—and as if
something broke within her, the “stirrings” crystalized. Without
taking her eyes from the frantic woman on the big blue horse, she
began to feel with her foot for something in the grass—something
long and dark and cold, but which seemed to her now more precious
and to be desired than anything upon the earth—namely, Sud Provine’s
rifle.
It seemed, all suddenly, as if the feel of a gun in her hands had
been with her from birth, as if she had leaped the years between and
was a daughter of the feudal mountaineers who had marked her Pappy’s
line.
Gone was all the stern restraint, the earnest supplication to be
kept from spilling blood. The hatred which had smouldered in her
leaped to its fulfillment.
For herself and hers she had borne all things—lost hope and poverty,
and the deadening weariness of gigantic labors.
She had believed in the hand of God that had been her shield and
buckler, had been patient in adversity, meek in her dogged courage.
Now, as Kate Cathrew clawed for a weapon to kill Brand Fair sitting
on his horse at the cave’s mouth, she was become a killer herself,
joying in the fact.
Her foot touched the rifle.
She bent and took it up.
As Cattle Kate straightened in her saddle, Nance dropped stiffly to
her knee and raised the gun.
Her blue eyes caught the sights and drew down steadily upon the
woman’s heart.
Just so had those forgotten Allisons drawn down upon their enemies
in the Kentucky hills.
Her finger touched the trigger.
And here the hand of destiny reached down—or was it the hand of
God?—and ordered the puppets playing out their little tragedy in the
heart of Rainbow Cliff.
As Kate Cathrew flung up her gun the furious rage that fired her
stiffened body in the saddle, shot her bolt upright, standing in her
stirrups.
Perhaps some unaccustomed pressure of her posture angered
him—perhaps the excitement of the moment loosed something wild in
his hybrid heart—perhaps it was something else.
The bearded man from the Upper Country said afterwards it was.
At any rate, with the woman’s spectacular and dramatic action,
Bluefire, the stallion, who hated her but obeyed her, gave one
scream and rose with her.
It was a magnificent leap, high spread-eagling, with the flowing
silver cloud of his mane tossing in the rosy light.
From the peak of its arc the woman, good rider though she was, but
taken by surprise, fell loose from her stirrups, cascading in a
flare of booted feet straight down his hips and tail.
At the same moment two shots rang out—her own and Nance’s both gone
wild with Bluefire’s interference.
Still on his hind feet, the stallion whirled, turning once more
toward the cut in the wall, and came down—his shod forefeet full
upon her breast. He leaped over her body and was gone, his empty
saddle shining with its vanity of silver.
A silence of death fell for a moment in the peaceful Pot.
Then two men moved.
McKane, the trader who leaped from his horse and knelt by Kate
Cathrew, and Big Basford who flung up his arms and shook his clawing
fingers toward the western wall.
“You killed her!” he shrieked, “You yellow devil—you’ve killed Kate
Cathrew! And I’ll kill you!”
He kicked his horse viciously and shot forward.
Bud Allison, the boy whom none had noticed, raised his Pappy’s gun
and fired.
Big Basford toppled to the left and slid out of his saddle with an
audible grunt. He rolled over, shook his good fist toward the serene
skies, and was still.
Slowly the group drew in to look at Cattle Kate lying so quietly
after the storm.
McKane was holding her hand between his own and murmuring foolish,
endearing words. Lawrence Arnold pushed him aside with an oath.
* * * * *
But Brand Fair turned his eyes for the first time toward that
farther wall. For a moment he did not recognize the creature which
knelt there, the smoking rifle across its knee, its face covered
with both hands.
Then something familiar in the drooping shoulders, the ragged veil
of shining hair, struck home to him.
Without a word he went forward and dismounted.
Incredulously he stooped and took the hands away.
Wide eyed he looked at her.
“Nance!” he cried in horror, “Nance—Nance—Nance! God Almighty!
What’s this?”
“I am forsaken of my God,” said the girl piteously, “I had to kill
her—or she’d have killed you!”
“You didn’t,” said Fair sharply, “the stallion killed her. Your shot
went wild.”
She looked at him dully, uncomprehending, and Fair repeated his
words. As she realized their import her lips began to quiver, she
rolled down upon the trampled grass with her face to the sod, and
wept.
Brand Fair, knowing that this matter was between her soul and its
Maker, wisely did not attempt to comfort her.
He sat with his hand on her heaving shoulder and watched the tragic
scene.
Bossick and his men surrounded Arnold. Big Basford was dead. And
here was Nance Allison in Rainbow’s Pot at dawn, ghastly with blood
and weariness.
A thousand questions burned in his brain, but he waited.
From the right Rod Stone was coming forward, followed by the
half-breed girl and the rest of the men from Cordova.
* * * * *
Bossick took Stone into custody and called to Bud Allison who came
limping forward, his blue eyes glittering with defiance.
Fair stooped and lifting Nance bodily carried her into the heart of
the group.
“Men,” he said, “here’s something more to add to our score against
Sky Line. Look!”
They looked in astonishment.
“Great Scott!” said Bossick wonderingly, “It’s Miss Allison, ain’t
it? What’s she doing here?”
“That’s a question I’ll ask Lawrence Arnold,” said Fair in a voice
like a blade, but the bearded man from the Upper Country spoke up
promptly.
“I think young Stone and Minnie Pine can answer that, since that is
why we’re here. Speak, Stone.”
The rider shook his head.
“Let Minnie,” he said, “she was first to know about it.”
All eyes turned to the Pomo girl, among those of Lawrence Arnold,
still holding in his arms the body of Kate Cathrew, and they were
cruel as a hawk’s.
“I listened,” said Minnie calmly, “I always listened when there was
devil’s talk at Sky Line. I’ve heard much. This time the Sun Woman
yonder stood in the Inner Room where they had brought her, and gave
back in their teeth the words of the Boss and the Master. They
wanted her to sign her mother’s name to a paper which would give to
Kate Cathrew the homestead on Nameless——”
“Great Scott!” said Bossick again.
“She wouldn’t,” went on Minnie, “and so they gave her to Sud Provine
to keep all night in Rainbow’s Pot, with Big Basford standing guard
outside.”
There was the sound of an indrawn breath from Fair.
“We know Provine, Rod Stone and me,” continued the girl, “and so we
went to Cordova for help to get her out. We had to wait so long to
get away from Sky Line——”
“But they came, men,” cut in the bearded man, “don’t forget that in
the final settlement. They dared Arnold and Cattle Kate to save a
woman’s honor—and that’s no small thing.”
“Shucks!” said Stone disgustedly, “what would any half-man do?”
Fair stood Nance upon her feet.
She raised her unspeakable head and glanced at the tense faces.
“Where’s this Provine? Tell us, Nance,” said Fair still in that
thin, hard voice. He hitched his holster a little farther forward on
his thigh.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I tore his face to ribbons—I’d have
killed him if I could. He crawled that way.”
She nodded toward the north.
Fair loosed her gently and was turning away, when Bossick caught his
arm.
“Hold hard, Smith—Mr. Fair,” he said, “not in your condition.
Jermyn—go see what you can find. In the meantime—there’s Big
Basford. The boy was quick——”
Here Rod Stone broke in, speaking frankly.
“I’d like to say men, that when young Allison killed Big Basford he
got the man who threw his father down Rainbow Cliff and stretched
the rope that lamed _him_. John Allison had found the only outside
way to the rim and was looking down into the Pot here, when Basford
went to meet him.”
For a long moment there was silence.
“It would seem to me,” said Bossick slowly, “that there has been a
deal of justice done here this day—a very great deal of justice.
It’s destiny.”
Nance Allison looked up at him with a light in her blue eyes.
“It’s the hand of God, Mr. Bossick,” she said gravely, “no less.”
The rancher nodded.
“Maybe,” he said, as Jermyn and several others who had accompanied
him, came back across the basin with Sud Provine among them.
One look at the man was sufficient.
“I guess he’s had all that was coming to him for the present,” said
Bossick grimly. “Take him along to the house. We’ll go gather in the
rest.”
And so, in the full day, with the risen sun touching all the
tapestried slopes of Mystery with gold, Cattle Kate Cathrew went
back to her stronghold under the tinted cliff—went in state with a
retinue behind her.
She had died as she had lived, spectacularly, and her turbulent soul
should have been satisfied.
With her went one man who had loved her after his selfish fashion,
another who would have crawled in the dust to kiss her feet, while a
third, borne rolling limply on a saddle, followed after more closely
than any other.
The young cowboy from the Upper Country absent-mindedly rolled a
cigarette.
“She was worth it,” he said softly to the bearded man beside him,
“in spite of all!”
“Hell!” said the other, “look yonder! One square foot of his satin
hide was worth her whole body! I always thought he’d get her, some
time, some way. I’m going to dig up my last dollar an’ buy him from
whoever owns him now.”
Bluefire stood against the cliff, watching with interested eyes this
strange procession passing.
* * * * *
Another spring was smiling on the Deep Heart hills.
On the broad slopes, the towering slants, the conifers sang their
everlasting song, tuned by the little winds from the south.
White clouds sailed the vault above leading their shadows for a
little space upon the soft green country.
On the wide brown flats by Nameless the young crops were springing,
vigorous and safe, and some few herds browsed peacefully on the
rugged range.
In the doorway of the cabin by the river, Nance Fair sat with Sonny
in her lap, watching the slope beyond.
“Won’t Brand be coming soon?” the child wanted to know. “The Rainbow
Cliff is shining, so it’s getting late.”
“Soon—very soon, honey,” said Nance smilingly, “I heard Dirk bark in
the buck-brush yonder a little while ago.”
In the room beyond Mrs. Allison rocked contentedly.
“Nance,” she said, “you know this here carpet always makes me think
of the floor of the woods, somehow, with its brown an’ white. It’s
so fresh an’ fair an’ soft.”
“That’s why I got that warp,” said Nance happily, “I felt it
would—and it does so. Yes, it does so. Run, Sonny—yonder’s Brand and
Bud!”
Brand and Bud, riding up from the waters of Nameless in the evening
haze, Diamond and Buckskin drawing long breaths of satisfaction at
the sight of home.
Nance rose and waited for the lean dark man who swung down and came
to her with Sonny on his shoulder. As he stooped to lay his lips to
hers he looked long and tenderly into her blue eyes.
“Heart of my heart!” he whispered.
“How’s all, Brand?” called the mother as she spread a cloth on the
scoured table preparatory to “feeding her men-folk” as she phrased
it.
Brand Fair hung his hat on a nail and turned to the well as Bud came
whistling up the path.
“Fine, Mammy,” he called back, “everything at Sky Line’s doing well.
Rod and Minnie make things move, and I can trust them. The only
thing that jars is old Josefa who never fails to tell me that all
half-breeds are fools, and that white men can’t be trusted. And then
she bakes an extra pie for Rod and smiles at Minnie proudly.
Yes—all’s well. All’s well on Nameless, eh, old-timer?”
And swinging the boy once more to his shoulder, he followed young
Bud in across the sill.