De Spain took both her hands. He held them against his breast and stood looking into her eyes. When he regarded her in such a way her doubts and fears seemed mean and trivial. He spoke only one word, but there was a world of confidence in his tone: “Stick.”
She arched her brows as she returned his gaze, and with a little troubled laugh drew closer. “Stick, Nan,” he repeated. “It will come out all right.”
She paused a moment. “How can you know?”
“I know because it’s got to. I talked it all over with my best friend in Medicine Bend, the other day.”
“Who, Henry?”
“Whispering Smith. He laughed at your uncle’s opposing us. He said if your uncle only knew it, it’s the best thing that could happen for him. And he said if all the marriages opposed by old folks had been stopped, there wouldn’t be young folks enough left to milk the cows.”
“Henry, what is this report about the Calabasas barns burning?”
“The old Number One barn is gone and some of the old stages. We didn’t lose any horses, and the other barns are all right. Some of our Calabasas or Gap friends, probably. No matter, we’ll get them all rounded up after a while, Nan. Then, some fine day, we’re going to get married.”
De Spain rode that night to Calabasas to look into the story of the fire.