“Tell me,” his eyes commanded.
“I just told her what I heard this morning,” said Bud, “that a man was shot by rustlers and that it was Smith—you. She said something about one of the Bible men who went out and slew his enemies—and she was starting for Sky Line, I think.”
There was no need to ask more, for Nance had covered her face with her shaking hands and bending forward on Fair’s breast was weeping terribly.
The man drew her close and held her, and the dark eyes that gazed down at her shining head with its neat braids, were grave and very tender.
At last he said quietly, “It was our friend, Sheriff Selwood, but he is not dead. He’s at his ranch, but he cannot talk—and no one knows who shot him. Sky Line drove down this morning—all regular and humdrum. McKane says Selwood knows—that he tried to tell him who the rustlers of Nameless are, but that he could not. When he comes round there’ll be something doing in this neck of the woods, or I miss my guess. Come, Nance—aren’t you going to invite me to dinner? I’ve got four prime grey squirrels in my saddle-bags, and my canteen’s full of honey—found a bee tree down the river.”
And with the gentle tact of deep understanding and something more, Fair drew Nance back from the edge of tragedy to the safe ground of the commonplace.
She straightened up, wiped her hands down across her cheeks and looked at him with eyes in which the tears still glistened.
“I thought,” she said unsteadily, “that Kate Cathrew had had you shot.”
“She’ll have to get up earlier than I do if she pulls that trick,” he laughed, “I’ve been too long on guard.”
Two days later Nameless was ringing with the news of the raid and Bossick was grim and silent.