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Mrs. Allison considered this odd information gravely.

“It means someone else besides the child and dog, that’s certain. They never got there by their lone selves.”

“But maybe they got lost from some one—and they may be hungry——” the girl half rose at that thought, her brows gathering in distress—“though whoever could be in Blue Stone Cañon, and what for, I don’t know.”

The older woman shook her head.

“Not one chance in a thousand of that. No—someone else is there, that’s sure. An’ I don’t believe I’d meddle.”

But Nance rose determinedly.

“I’ve got to, Mammy,” she said, “I’d never sleep another night if I didn’t. Tomorrow I’ll go back bright and early.”

The mother regarded her with troubled eyes.

“Let Bud go, too—you never know—might be a trap or somethin’.”

“With such bait? No. That little leg was so thin—like its owner was wispy. I wish it was morning.”

All the rest of the day and the tranquil evening Nance felt a thrill and stir within her, a trouble. She milked old Whitefoot and her sleek black daughter, Pearly, to the remembered sound of the fairy voices of the cañon, and when she sat to her nightly reading of the Word beneath the coal-oil lamp on the table there intruded on the sacred page the gleaming fangs above that motionless small leg.