“H’m!” said Bud as he sidled into his chair and smoothed his bronze hair, wet from his ablutions at the well, “H’m—Mammy, why’d you tell her that? I wish you hadn’t.”
“Why?” said Nance, but her brother shook his head.
CHAPTER IX
GOLDEN MAGIC
Something had happened to Nance Allison. For the first time in her healthy young life sleep refused to visit her. Even her terrible grief at the death of her father had given way to sleep at last and she had forgotten her tragedy for a blessed time.
But on the night following her interview with the strange man of the cañon she was wide awake till dawn.
She was not uncomfortable. She did not think she was ill. But an odd inner warmth surged all through her, a pleasant fire ran in her veins. She lay in her bed with her hands beneath her head and thought over and over each phase of the day she had spent with Sonny, each incident that had led up to the appearance of Brand Fair. Then, with a peculiar delight, she went over his every word, every movement. She remembered the look of his brown hand on the black horse’s bit, the tilt of his hat, the way the chin-strap lay along his lean, dark cheek. She recalled the direct glance of his eyes, the slow smile that creased his lips’ corners.
He was like no other man she had ever seen.
There was a sweetness in the tones of his deep voice, a sense of restfulness and strength about him. He seemed to fit in with her dreams of the best things to be had in life—like lace curtains and the rag carpet which was slowly growing in her Mammy’s hands.
His name, too—Brand Fair. She liked the sound of it.
And it was Sonny’s name. Suddenly she sat bolt upright, staring at the darkness. Fair—Sonny Fair! Could it be that Brand was Sonny’s father? For some inexplicable reason a cold hand seemed to clutch her heart, a feeling of disaster to encompass her.