“You love it a lot, don’t you?” she asked plaintively.
“I think it’s more than love,” said the big girl slowly as she rolled her faded sleeves higher along her golden arms preparatory to washing at the well in the yard, “I think it’s principle—a proving of myself—I think it’s a front line in the battle of life—and I believe I’m a mighty fighter.”
“I know you are,” said the woman with conviction, faintly tinged with pride, “but—there’ll be few cattle left for herds if things go on the way they have gone. Perhaps there’ll be neither herds nor herders——”
But her daughter interrupted.
“There’ll be a fight, at any rate,” she said as she plunged her face, man fashion, into the basin filled with water from the bucket which she had lifted, hand over hand—“there’ll be a fight to the finish when I start—and some day I’m afraid I’ll start.”
She looked at her mother with a shade of trouble on her frank face.
“For two years,” she added, “I’ve been turning the other cheek to my enemies. I haven’t passed that stage, yet. I’m still patient—but I feel stirrings.”
“God forbid!” said the older woman solemnly, “it sounds like feud!”
“Will be,” returned the girl shortly, “though I pray against it night and day.”
The boy Bud came up from the stable along the path, and Nance stood watching him. There was but one thing in Nameless Valley that could harden her sweet mouth, could break up the habitual calm of her eyes. This was her brother, Bud.