“I know something of it—Sonny didn’t tell me, but I saw the signs of your scuffle. It was printed plain in the sand and shale.”
“No—Sonny didn’t tell,” said Nance regretfully, “and I made him a liar—when I didn’t mean to. I asked him not to tell you that I’d been here. I was afraid you’d take him away. I didn’t think you’d ask him point blank.”
“I’ve taught the boy not to talk,” said the man—“it’s a vital necessity to us.”
“He doesn’t. I couldn’t find out a thing, for all I wheedled shamelessly, except that you were Brand, and that you two ride always on Diamond there.”
“My name is Fair, Miss Allison—Brand Fair, and that is Sonny’s name also. But—we don’t tell it to strangers.”
He smiled at her again, a slow creasing of the lines about his lips, a pleasant narrowing of his eyes.
“Then I—” there was an elemental quality of gladness in Nance’s voice, though she was utterly unconscious of it, “am not a stranger?”
“You are Sonny’s friend,” he replied, “and we give you our trust.”
The girl swallowed once and tightened her hold on the child’s thin shoulders. There was something infinitely pathetic, infinitely intriguing in this situation, and it gripped her strongly.
“I—thank you,” she said awkwardly, “I’ll not betray it.”