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She asked nothing better than to carry on, to see it prosper and endure.

But strange disasters had befallen her, one after the other—first and bitterest, the hidden rope stretched in a cattle trail two years back, just after John Allison’s mysterious death, which sent young Bud’s pony tumbling to the gulch below and left the boy to walk lopsided ever after.

At that the girl had almost weakened in her stubborn purpose. She had held the young head in her arms many a weary hour when the pain was worst, and tried to build a plan of a future away from Nameless Valley, but Bud would not listen. The bare thought made him fret and toss, sent the red blood burning in his cheeks.

“We’ll never let ’em beat us out, Nance,” he would pant with his hot breath, “the land is ours, safe and legal, and no bunch o’ cut-throats is goin’ to get it from us. Not while we can stand—not while we can ride or plow—or use a gun!”

But Nance would stop him always there.

“‘Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me,’” she would say gently, “we have no need of guns, Bud.”