“Good gracious!” whispered the girl again.
“And the reason I am not ready to run into her yet is this—she would recognise me before I am ready, because she knew me once some six years ago.”
Nance Allison was, as her Mammy would say, “flabbergasted.”
She was too astonished to speak.
“I know a lot from the other end of her operations. I want to make sure at this end. I want to get in touch with Sheriff Selwood—and I want you to hold hard on your battle line, knowing that it can not always be as it is now, that other forces are lined up with you—that if all goes as it should—Cattle Kate will be caught in her own trap—and I hope to the Lord it is soon.”
“Why—why, this is a wonder to me!” said Nance, “a wonder and a light in my darkness! I felt you for good that first day I set eyes on you in the cañon. Now I understand—you are the messenger whose feet are beautiful on the hills, as the Bible says—who bears good tidings! My faith has never faltered,” she went on earnestly, “I knew always that the hand of God was before me, that my ways were not hidden from His sight and that some way, some time, all would be well with us. But sometimes it has been hard.”
Fair sat thinking deeply.
“Yes—Cattle Kate would make it hard—if she had a reason,” he said and there was a note of bitterness in his low voice, “only God and I know how hard.”
“Has she——” Nance asked and hesitated, “has she made it hard for—for you?”
Somehow she dreaded his reply.