He told her of the cities and the sea, spoke of Mexico and this and that far place, but mostly he brought her pictures of her own land—the rivers of the Rockies, the Arizona mesas—and the girl, starved for the unknown, listened open-lipped.
They cleared away the cloth and Nance took Sonny in her lap, while Fair stretched out at length smoking in contentment.
The child slept, the sun dropped down the cloud-flecked vault, and it was Fair himself who finally put an end to the enchanted hour, rising and catching up the horses.
“You have far to go, Miss Allison,” he said as he stood beside her smiling down into her face, “and Sonny and I must be careful not to work a hardship on you, or you might not come again.”
The ride back down Little Blue was quiet. A thousand impressions were moiling happily in Nance’s mind. Her eyes felt drowsy, a little smile kept pulling at her lips’ corners, and yet, so wholly inexperienced was she, she did not know what magic had been at work in the green silence of the Circle and Grey Spring.
It was only when Fair pulled his horse so sharply up that Buckskin nearly stumbled on his heels that she came out of her abstraction. He sat rigid in his saddle, one hand extended in warning, gazing straight ahead to where Little Blue opened into Blue Stone. She looked ahead and understood.
A horseman was just coming into sight at the right edge of the opening, a big red steer was just vanishing at the left—and the man was Kate Cathrew’s rider, Sud Provine.
He rode straight across and did not glance up the cut, and the watchers in the shadow knew they were unobserved.
For a long time they sat in tense silence after he had passed, waiting, listening, but nothing followed and presently Fair turned and looked at her.
His lips were tightly set and his face was grave.