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diff --git a/28956.txt b/28956.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..42ed16b --- /dev/null +++ b/28956.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8336 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Tharon of Lost Valley, by Vingie E. Roe + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Tharon of Lost Valley + +Author: Vingie E. Roe + +Illustrator: Frank Tenney Johnson + +Release Date: May 24, 2009 [EBook #28956] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THARON OF LOST VALLEY *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: AS EL REY ROSE ON HIS HIND FEET WHIRLING, THAT UNWAVERING +MUZZLE WHIRLED ALSO TO KEEP IN LINE] + + + + +THARON OF LOST VALLEY + +BY VINGIE E. ROE + +Author of "The Maid of the Whispering Hills," +"The Heart of Night Wind," etc. + +ILLUSTRATIONS BY FRANK TENNEY JOHNSON + +NEW YORK + +DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY + +1919 + + + + +Copyright, 1919 + +By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, Inc. + + + + +CONTENTS + + CHAPTER PAGE + I. The Gun Man's Heritage 1 + II. The Horses of the Finger Marks 29 + III. The Man in Uniform 52 + IV. Unbroken Bread 76 + V. The Working of the Law 102 + VI. El Rey and Bolt 128 + VII. The Shot in the Canons 157 + VIII. White Ellen 187 + IX. Signal Fires in the Valley 214 + X. The Untrue Firing Pin 247 + XI. Finger Mark and Ironwood at Last 277 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + PAGE + + As El Rey rose on his hind feet whirling, that + unwavering muzzle whirled also to keep in line _Frontispiece_ + + Near them sat a rider on a buckskin horse 38 + + She talked with Conford who rode beside her and + now and then she smiled 104 + + In fact Courtrey, burning with the new desire + that was beginning to obsess him, was working + out a new design 131 + + + + +THARON OF LOST VALLEY + +CHAPTER I + +THE GUN MAN'S HERITAGE + + +Lost Valley lay like a sparkling jewel, fashioned in perfection, cast +in the breast of the illimitable mountain country--and forever after +forgotten of God. + +A tiny world, arrogantly unconscious of any other, it lived its own +life, went its own ways, had its own conceptions of law--and they were +based upon primeval instincts. + +Cattle by the thousand head ran on its level ranges, riders jogged +along its trail-less expanses, their broad hats pulled over their +eyes, their six-guns at their hips. Corvan, its one town, ran its +nightly games, lined its familiar streets with swinging-doored +saloons. + +Toward the west the Canon Country loomed behind its sharp-faced +cliffs, on the east the rolling ranges, dotted with oak and +digger-pine, went gradually up to the feet of the stupendous peaks +that cut the sapphire skies. + +Lost indeed, it was a paradise, a perfect place of peace but for its +humans. Through it ran the Broken Bend, coming in from the high and +jumbled rocklands at the north, going out along the sheer cliffs at +the south. + +Out of its ideal loneliness there were but two known ways, and both +were worth a man's best effort. Down the river one might drive a band +of cattle, bring in a loaded pack train, single file against the wall. +That was a twelve days' trip. Up through the defiles at the west a man +on foot might make it out, provided he knew each inch of the Secret +Way that scaled False Ridge. + +It was spring, the time of greening ranges and the coming of new +calves. Soft winds dipped and wantoned with Lost Valley, in the Canon +Country shy flowers, waxen, heavy-headed on thin stems, clung to the +rugged walls. + +All day the sun had shone, mild as a lover, coaxing, promising. The +very wine of life was a-pulse in the air. + +All day Tharon Last had sung about her work scouring the boards of the +kitchen floor until they were soft and white as flax, helping old +Anita with the dinner for the men, seeing about the number of new +palings for the garden. She had swept every inch of the deep adobe +house, had fixed over the arrangement of Indian baskets on the mantel, +had filled all the lamps with coal-oil. She was very careful with the +lamps, trimming the wicks to smokeless perfection, for oil was scarce +and precious in Lost Valley, as were all outside products, since they +must come in at long intervals and in small quantities. And as she +worked she sang, wild, wordless melodies in a natural voice as rich as +a harp. That voice of Tharon's was one of the wonders of Lost Valley. +Many a rider went by that way on the chance that he might catch its +golden music adrift on the breeze, her father's men came up at night +to hear its martial stir, its tenderness, for the voice was the girl, +and Tharon was an unknown quantity, sometimes all melting sweetness, +sometimes fire that flashed and was still. + +So on this day she sang, since she was happy. Why, she did not know. +Perhaps it was because of the six new puppies in the milk-house, +rolling in awkward fatness against their shepherd mother, whose soft +eyes beamed up at the girl in beautiful pride. Perhaps it was because +of the springtime in the air. + +At any rate she worked with all the will and pleasure of youth in a +congenial task, and the roses of health bloomed in her cheeks. The +sun itself shone in her tawny hair where the curls made waves and +ripples, the blue skies of Lost Valley were faithfully reflected in +her eyes. + +Her skin was soft-golden, the enchanting skin of some half-blonds +which can never be duplicated by all the arts of earth, and her full +mouth was scarlet as pomegranates. + +Sometimes old Anita who had raised her, would stop and look at her in +wonder, so beautiful was she to old and faithful eyes. + +And not alone to Anita was she entirely lovely. + +There was not a full grown man in Lost Valley who would not go many a +mile to look upon her--with varying desires. Few voiced their +longings, however, for Jim Last was notorious with his guns and could +protect his daughter. He had protected her for twenty years, come full +summer, and he asked no odds of any. His eyes were like Tharon's--blue +and changing, with odd little lines that crinkled about them at the +corners, elongating them in appearance. He was a big man, vital and +quiet. The girl took her stature from him. Her flashes of fire came +from her mother, of whom she knew little and of whom Jim Last said +nothing. Once as a child she had asked him, after the manner of +children, about this mother of dim memories, and his eyes had hazed +with a look of suffering that scared her, he had struck his palm upon +a table, and said only: + +"She was an angel straight out of Heaven. Don't ask me again." + +So Tharon had not asked again, though she had wondered much. + +Sometimes old Anita, become garrulous with age, mumbled in the +twilight when the rose and the lavendar lights swept down the eastern +ramparts and across the rolling range lands, and the girl gleaned +scattered pictures of a gentle and lovely creature who had come with +her father out of a mystic country somewhere "below." + +"Below" meant down the river and beyond, an unnamable region. + +In the big living room there was one relic of this mysterious mother, +a tiny melodeon, its rosewood case a trifle marred by unknown +hardships, its ivory keys yellow with age. It had two small pedals and +two slender sticks which fitted therein and pushed the bellows up and +down when one trampled upon them. And to Tharon this little old +instrument was wealth of the Indies. The low piping of its reedy notes +made an accompaniment of surpassing sweetness when she sat before it +and sang her wordless melodies. And just as she found music in her +throat without conscious effort, so she found it in her fingers, deep, +resonant chords for her running minors, thin, trickling streams of +lightness for her own slow notes. + +The sun had turned to the west in its majestic course and Tharon, the +noon work over, drew up the spindle-legged stool and sat down to play +to herself and Anita. The old woman, half Mexic, half Indian, drowsed +in a low chair by the eastern window, her toil-hard hands clasped in +her lap, a black _reboso_ over her head, though the day was warm as +summer. A kitten frisked in the sunlight at the open door, wild ducks, +long domesticated, squalled raucously down the yards, some cattle +slept in the huge corrals and the little world of Last's Holding was +at peace. It seemed that only the girl idling over the yellowed keys, +was awake. + +For a long and happy hour Tharon sat so, sometimes opening her pretty +throat in ambitious flights of sound, again humming lowly--and that +was enchanting, as if one sang lullabies to flaxen heads on +shoulders. + +And it did enchant one--a man who stood for the better part of that +hour at the edge of the deep window in the adobe wall and watched the +singer. + +He was a splendid figure of a man, tall, broad, muscular, built for +strength and endurance. His face was unduly lined, even for his age, +which was near fifty, but the eyes under the arched black brows were +vital as a hawk's. He wore the customary garments of the Lost Valley +men, broad sombrero, flannel shirt, corduroys and cowboy boots, +stitched and decorated above their high heels. At his hips hung two +guns, spurs clinked when he stepped unguardedly. He rarely stepped +that way, however. + +When presently the girl at the melodeon ceased and drew the lid over +the keys with reverent fingers, he moved silently back a pace or two +along the wall. Then he waited. As he had anticipated, she came to the +door to look upon the budding world, and for another moment he watched +her with a strange expression. Then he swung forward and let the spurs +rattle. Tharon flashed to face him like a startled animal. + +"Hello, Tharon," he said and smiled. The girl stared at him with quick +insolence. + +"Howdy," she said coldly. + +He came close to the doorway, put one hand on the facing, the other on +his hip and leaned near. She drew back. He reached out suddenly and +gripped her wrist in fingers that bit like steel. + +"Pretty," he said, while his dark eyes narrowed. + +Tharon flung her whole young strength against his grip with a +twisting wrench and came free. The quick, tremendous effort left her +calm. And she did not retreat a step. + +"Hell," said the man admiringly, "little wildcat!" + +"What you want?" she asked sharply. + +"You," he answered swiftly. + +"Buck Courtrey," she said, "you might own an' run Lost Valley--all but +one outfit. You ain't never run Last nor put your dirty hand on th' +Holdin'. An' that ain't all. You never will. If you ever touch me +again, I'll tell Dad Jim an' he'll kill you. I'd a-told him before +when you met me that day on the range, only I didn't want his honest +hands smutted up with such as you. He's had his killin's before--but +they was always in fair-an'-open. You he'd give no quarter--if he knew +what you ben askin' me." + +The man's eyes narrowed evilly. They became calculating. + +"Tell him," he said. + +"Eh?" + +"Tell him." + +"You want to feed th' buzzards?" the girl asked with an insulting peal +of laughter. + +"Not yet--but I'll remember that speech some day." + +"Remember an' be damned," said Tharon. "Now kindly take your dirty +carcass off Last's Holding--back to your wife." + +The fire was flashing a little in her blue eyes as she spoke, and she +half turned to enter the house. + +As she did so, Courtrey flung out an arm and caught her about the +shoulders. He drew her against him with the motion and kissed her +square on the lips. For a second his narrowed eyes were drunken. + +As he loosed her Tharon gasped like a swimmer sinking. + +She put up a hand and drew it across her mouth, which was pale as +ashes with sudden rage. + +"Now," she said, "I'll tell him." + +"Do," said Courtrey, and swung away around the wall of the house. + +There were no more artless songs that day at Last's Holding. Anita was +awake and peering with dim eyes when Tharon came in from the door +sill. + +"_Mi querida_," she asked, "what happened?" + +"Nothing," said the girl, "it's time to begin supper. Th' boys'll soon +be comin' in." + +"_Si, si_," said Anita, "I'll ask Jose to cut the fresh beef--it has +hung long enough in the cooling house." + +Supper at Last's was a lively affair. At the long tables in the +eating room the riders gathered, lean, tanned men, young mostly, all +alert, quick-eyed, swift in judgment. Their days were full and earnest +enough, running Last's cattle on the Lost Valley ranges. The evenings +were their own, and they made the most of them. The big house was free +to them, and they made it home, smoking, playing cards on the living +room table under the hanging lamp, mulling over the work of the day, +and begging Tharon to sing to them, sometimes with the instrument, +sometimes sitting in the deep east window, when the moon shone, and +then they turned out the light and listened in adoring rapture. + +For Last's girl was the rose of the Valley, the one absolutely +unattainable woman, and they worshipped her accordingly. + +Not that she was aloof. Far from it. In her deep heart the whole bunch +of boys had a place; singly and collectively. They were her private +property, and she would have been inordinately jealous of any one of +them had he slipped allegiance. + +As the purple and crimson veils began to drape the eastern ramparts +where the forests thickened and swept up the slopes, these riders +began to come in across the range, driving the herds before them. +Running cattle in Lost Valley was no child's play. Any small bunch of +cows left out at night was not there by dawn. Eternal vigilance was +the price of safety, and then they were not always safe. Witness poor +Harkness, a year ago shot in the back and left to die alone--his band +run off in daylight. + +They had found him too late, pitifully propped against a stone, the +cigarette, he had tried to light to comfort him, dead in his nerveless +hand. Tharon had wept and wept for Harkness, for he had been a good +comrade, open-hearted and merry. And deep in her soul she harboured +dim longings for justice on his murderer--revenge, if you will. + +Tonight she thought of him, somehow, as she went about the supper work +along with Anita and Jose and pretty dark Paula. She stood a moment on +the broad stone at the kitchen door, a dish of butter from the +springhouse under the poplars in her hand, and watched Billy Brent and +Curly bring in a bunch from up Long Meadow way. She thought how bright +the spotted cattle looked, how lithe and graceful the men, and then +her eyes lighted as they always did when she beheld the horses of +Last's Holding--the horses of the Finger Marks. + +Billy rode Redbuck, Curly Drumfire, and they were princes of a royal +blood, albeit Nature's strain alone. Slim, spirited, wiry, eager +heads up, manes flying, bright hoofs flashing in the late sunlight, +they came home to Last's after a long day's work, fresh as when they +went out at dawn. + +"Nothin' ever floors them," Tharon said aloud to herself. "Wonderful +creatures." + +She set the butter down on the rock at her feet, cupped her hands +about her lips and sent out a keen, clear call, two notes, one rising, +one falling. It had a livening, compelling quality. + +Instantly Drumfire flung up his head and answered it with a ringing +whistle, though he did not lose a stride in the flying curve he was +performing to head a stubborn yearling that refused in stiff-tailed +arrogance to go into the corrals. + +The girl smiled and, stooping, picked up her dish and entered. + +It was late before the last straggler was in from the range. The boys +washed at the big sink on the porch, and were ready for the hearty +fare that steamed in the lamp-lighted room. For the last hour Tharon +had been watching the eastern slopes for her father. + +"He's ridin' late, Anita," she said anxiously as the men trooped in +with the usual jest and laughter. + +"He went far, no doubt, _Corazon,"_ said old Anita comfortably. "He +goes so fast on El Rey that time as well as distance flies beneath the +shining hoofs." + +Anita was like her people, mystic and soft-spoken. + +"True," said the girl gently, "I forget, El Rey is mighty. He went +very far I make no doubt. We'll hear him comin' soon." + +Then she poured steaming coffee in the cups about the table, smiling +down in the eyes upturned to hers. Billy, Curly, Bent Smith, Jack +Masters and Conford, the foreman, they all had a love-look for her, +and the girl felt it like a circling guerdon. She was grateful for the +sense of security that seemed to emanate from her father's riders, a +bit wistful withal, as if, for the first time in her life, she needed +something more than she had always had. + +"Which way did Dad go, Billy?" she asked, "north or south?" + +"North," said Billy, "he rode th' Cup Rim range today." + +When the meal, a trifle silent in deference to Tharon's silence, was +done, the men rose awkwardly. They stood a moment, looking about, +undecided. + +Conford picked them up with his eyes and nodded out. He felt that just +maybe the girl would rather be alone. But Tharon stopped the +reluctant egress. + +"Don't go, boys," she said, "come on in th' room. There's no moon +tonight." But she did not play on the melodeon. Instead she sat in the +deep window that looked over the rolling uplands and was quiet, +listening. + +"Turn out th' light, Bent," she said, "somehow I feel like shadows +tonight." + +So they sat about in the great room, black with the darkness of the +soft spring night, and like the true worshippers they were, they did +not speak. Only the red butts of their cigarettes glowed and faded, to +glow again and again fade out. Tharon sat curled in the window, her +graceful limbs drawn up to her chin, her eyes half closed, her keen +ears open like a forest creature's. She was listening for the marked +rhythm of the great El Rey, the clap-clap, clap-clap of the king of +Last's Holding as he singlefooted down the hollow slopes of the +lifting eastern range. + +And as she waited she thought of many things. Odd little happenings of +her childhood came back to her--the time she had caught her father +killing the winter's beef, had wept in hysterical pity and forbidden +him to finish. + +They had had no meat those long months following--and she had so tired +of beans, that she had never been able to eat them since. She smiled +in the dusk as she recalled Jim Last's life-long indulgence of her. + +And the time she had wanted to make her own knee-short dresses as long +as Anita's, to sweep the floors, with fringe upon them and stripes of +bright print. + +She had worn them so--at twelve--until she found that they hindered +the free use of her young limbs in mounting a horse, free-foot and +bareback. Then, once again the memory of her father's face when she +questioned him concerning her mother. + +"Boys," she said suddenly, smiling to herself, "did you ever know a +man like my dad?" + +There was a movement among the lounging riders, a shifting of +position, a striking of cigarette ash. + +"No, sir," said Billy promptly, "there hain't another man's good with +a gun as him, not anywhere's in Lost Valley. Not even Buck Courtrey +himself. I'd back Jim Last against him, even, in fair-draw. Why?" + +"Oh, nothin'," said the girl, "only--listen--Glory!" she added slipping +down from the window to stand quietly in the gloom, "that's him now! I +was wishin' hard he'd come. Say--listen----Why,--there's somethin' +gone wrong with El Rey's feet! 1--2----3, 4, 5, 6----1--2--Boys--he's +breakin'! Th' king ain't singlefootin' right, for th' first time +since Jim Last put a halter on him! Come--come quick!" + +Ordinarily Tharon was a bit slow in her movements, as the very +graceful often are. Now she was across the room to the western door +before a man had moved. They joined her there and she stood at +attention, one hand at her breast, the breath held still in her +throat. The light, shining through from the eating room beyond, made a +halo of her tawny hair. Silently the riders grouped about her and +listened. + +Sure enough. Down along the range that rang as some open stretches do, +there came the clip-clap of a hurrying horse, only now the hoof beats +were regular for a little space, to break, halt, start on, and again +ring true in the beautiful syncopation of the born singlefooter. The +king was coming home, but, alas! not as he had ever come before, in +full flight, proud and powerful. He held his speed and sacrificed his +certainty to the man who clung desperately to the saddle horn and +swayed in wide arcs, so that he must shift continually to keep under +him. + +Into the dim glow of light at the open door came El Rey at last, great +blue-silver stallion, his big eyes shining like phosphorus, his +nostrils wide with horror of the pungent crimson wash that painted his +right shoulder. + +He stopped at the door-stone, his duty done. + +"Dad!" screamed Tharon, shrill as a bugle, for Jim Last, white and +dull as a moon in fog, let go his desperate hold on the pommel and +slid, deadweight, into the reaching arms that circled him. + +They carried him into the living room. Before they had him safely on +the wide couch where the Indian blankets glowed, Tharon, trembling but +efficient, had lighted the hanging lamp above the table. + +Then she pushed the men aside and knelt beside him. + +"Dad," she said clearly, "Jim! Jim Last!" + +But the gaining of his goal had been too much. For a moment the +flickering light in him died down to ashes. Tharon, her face as white +as his own, waited in a man-like quiet. She held his stiffened hands +and her eyes burned upon his features. With a deadly knowledge she was +printing them indelibly upon her heart. + +Presently Jim Last sighed and opened his eyes. They sought hers and he +smiled, a tender lighting from within. He fumbled for the buckle of +his gun-belt. The girl unclasped it and pulled it free. She noticed +that both guns were in their holsters. + +"Put it on," whispered the master of Last's Holding. + +Without a question Tharon stood up and buckled the belt about her +slender waist. + +Her father raising himself with difficulty on an elbow, wet his lips. + +"Tharon, my girl," he said, "show your dad th' backhand flip." + +Strange play, this, when every second counted, but Last's daughter +obeyed him to the letter. + +She stepped clear by the table, stood at attention a second, and, with +a peculiar outward whirl, lightning-quick, of her two wrists, had him +covered with the big blue guns. + +He nodded. + +"Good as I learned ye," he whispered, "make it better." + +"I will," promised Tharon swiftly. + +The man closed his eyes, swayed, recovered as Conford caught him, and +brightened again. + +"Now th' under-sling." + +Again she obeyed, replacing the weapons, standing that second +at attention, and flipping them from the holsters so quickly +that the eye could scarcely catch the motion. Both draws were +peculiar--and peculiarly Last's own. "Good girl," he said with +a husk grown suddenly in his voice, "take--three hours--a day. +I want t' leave you th' best gun-handler in Lost Valley--because, +my girl--you'll--have--to--to--pro----" + +He ceased, wilting forward in Conford's arms. + +Then he opened his eyes again for one last smile at the daughter he +had loved above all things on earth, save and except the memory of the +woman who had given her to him. + +For once in her life Tharon did not wait his finished speech. She saw +the Hand reach out of the shadows and flung herself upon his breast +where the blood still seeped and fairly forced the last flutter of +life to brighten in him. She kissed his rugged cheek. + +"Who, Dad," she called into his dulling senses, "tell me who? I'll get +him, so help me God!" and she loosed one hand to cross herself, as old +Anita had taught her. + +But the promise was late. None knew whether or not Jim Last heard it, +for before the last word was done the breath had ceased in his +throat. + +Another twilight came down upon Lost Valley. The wide ranges lay dim +and mysterious, grey and pink and lavendar, as if the hand of a +Master Painter had coloured them, as indeed it had. The Rockface at +the west was black with shadow for all its rugged miles, the eastern +uplands were bathed and aglow with purplish crimson light. + +In Corvan lights twinkled all up and down the one main street. Horses +were tied at the hitch-racks and among them were the Ironwoods +from Courtrey's Stronghold, beautiful big creatures, blood-bay, +black-pointed, noticeable in any bunch. There were no Finger Marks, +however, the blue roans, red roans and buckskins with the four +black stripes on the outside of the knee, as if one had slapped them +with a tarred hand, which hailed from Last's. There were horses +from all up and down the Valley. Cow ponies and half-breeds of the +Ironwood stock which Courtrey would not keep at the Stronghold but was +too close to kill, shouldered pintos from the Indian settlements, +big, half-wild horses from over the mountains at the North. Inside +the brightly lighted saloons men passed back and forth, drank neat +liquor at the worn bars, played at the green felt and canvas +covered tables. At one, The Golden Cloud, more pretentious than the +rest, there foregathered the leading spirits of the Valley. Here +Courtrey came and played and drank, his henchmen with him. He was in +high mettle this night. Always a contained man, slow to laughter +and to speech, he seemed to have unbent more than usual, to respond +to the human nature about him. He was not playing steadily as was +his wont. He took a turn at poker with three men from the south of +the Valley where the river ran out of the Bottle Neck, won a hand +or two, threw down the cards and swung away to talk a moment with +this one, listen a moment where those two spoke of hushed matters. +Always when he came near he was accorded deference. There was +nothing sacred from Courtrey of the Stronghold, seated like a feudal +place at the north head of Lost Valley, no conversation so private +that he could not come in on it if he chose. + +For Courtrey was the king of the country, undisputed sovereign, the +best gun man north of the Rio Grand and south of the Line, if one +excepted Jim Last. With him tonight were Black Bart, tall, swarthy, +gimlet-eyed, a helf-breed Mexican, and Wylackie Bob his right-hand +man. Without these two he seldom moved. They were both able +lieutenants, experts with firearms. A formidable trio, the three went +where and when they listed, and few disputed their right-of-way. + +Courtrey, a smile in his dark eyes, the wide black hat at an angle on +his iron-grey hair, leaned against the high bar and scanned the +crowded room where the riders played and laughed and swore with +abandon. + +"Heard anything more about Canon Jim?" he asked Bullard, the +proprietor of The Golden Cloud, "ain't come in yet?" + +Bullard shook his head. + +"No--nor he won't, according to my notion. Think he mistook th' False +Ridge drop. Ain't no man could make it up again without th' hammer +spike an' rope." + +"H'm--don't know. Don't know," mused Courtrey. "I've always thought it +could be done. There ought to be a way on th' other side, seems +like." + +"Well, _ought_ an' _is_ is two diff'rent things, Buck," grinned +Bullard. + +"Sure," nodded the king, "sure. An' yet--" + +"Hello, Buck." + +A soft hand touched Courtrey's shoulder with a subtle caress. He +wheeled on the instant, ready, alert. Then he smiled and reaching up, +took the hand and held it openly. + +"Hello, Lola," he said, "how goes it?" + +The newcomer was a woman, full, rounded, dark, and she was past-master +of men--as witness the slow glance that she turned interestedly out +over the teeming room, even while the pulse in the wrist in Courtrey's +clasp leaped like a racer. She was a perfect specimen of a certain +type, beautiful after a resplendent fashion, full of eye and lip, +confident, calm. She was brilliantly clad in crimson and black, and +rings of value shone on her ivory-like hands. + +Lola of the Golden Cloud was known all over Lost Valley. Men who had +no women worshipped her--and some who had, also. At the Stronghold at +the Valley's head there was a woman who hated her, though she had +never set eyes on her--Courtrey's wife. + +If Lola knew this she had never mentioned it, wise creature that she +was. Proud of her beauty and her power she had reigned at The Golden +Cloud in supreme indifference, even to her men themselves, it seemed, +though hidden undercurrents ran strong in her. Which way they tended +many a reckless buck of Lost Valley would have given much to know, +among them Courtrey himself. + +Now she pulled her hand away from him and sauntered over to a table +where five men sat playing, laid it upon the shoulder of one of them, +leaned down and looked at the cards in his hand. + +The man, a tall stripling in a silver-studded belt, looked up, +flattered. + +Courtrey by the bar watched her, still smiling. Then he turned back +to Bullard and went on with his conversation. + +Over by the wall a man on a raised dais began to tune an ancient +fiddle. + +Two more women came in from somewhere at the back, a big blooming girl +by the name of Sadie, and a small red-head, tragically faded, with +soft brown eyes that should never have looked upon Bullard's. Two men +rose and took them as the tune, an old-fashioned waltz, began to +ripple under the fingers of the fiddler, who was a born musician, and +the four swung down between the tables and the bar. The Golden Cloud +was in full swing, running free for the night, though the soft +twilight was scarcely faded from the beautiful country without. + +Slip--step, slip--step--went the dancing feet to the accompaniment of +rattling spurs. These men were lithe and active, able to dance with +amazing grace in chaps and the full accoutrement of the rider. They +even wore their broad brimmed hats. + +Why should they not, since none objected? + +Bullard, solid, stocky, red-faced, leaned on his bar and watched the +busy room with pleased eyes. + +He did not hear a voice which called his name, once or twice, among +the jumble of sounds. Presently an odd figure came round the end of +the bar from a door that opened there into the mysterious back +regions of the place and elbowed in to face him. + +This was a little old man, weazened and bent, his unkempt head thrust +forward from hunched shoulders. He dragged two grain sacks behind him, +and he was so grotesquely bow-legged that the first sight of him +always provoked laughter. This was old Pete the snow-packer, bound on +his nightly trip to the hills. Outside his burros waited, their +pack-saddles empty. + +By dawn they would come down from the world's rim, the grain sacks +bulging with hard-packed snow for the cooling of Bullard's liquor. + +"Dick," he said when he faced his employer, "here 'tis time t' start +an' there ain't a damned bit o' grub put up fer me! Ef ye don't make +that pig-tailed Chink pay 'tention t' my wants, I quit! I quit, I tell +ye!" + +And he emphasized his vehement protest by whirling the bags over his +head and flailing them upon the floor. + +A roar of laughter greeted him, which brought dim tears of indignation +to his old eyes. + +"Ye don't care a damn!" he whimpered in impotent rage. "Jes' 'cause +it's me. Ef 'twas yer ol' Chink, now--if 'twas him, th' ol' +he-pigtail, ye'd----" + +"Hold on, Pete," said Bullard, slapping an indulgent hand on the +grotesque shoulder, "You go tell Wan Lee that if he don't put up th' +best lunch in camp for you, an' _muy pronto_ at that, I'll come in an' +skin him alive. Tell him----" + +But Bullard was never to finish that sentence. + +There was a sound of running horses stopping square at the rack +without, the rattle of chains, the creak of saddles. + +Booted feet struck the boards of the porch, and almost upon the +instant the great iron door of The Golden Cloud swung inward. + +The dancers stopped in their stride, the players laid down their +cards, the noise of the room ceased with the suddenness that +characterized the time and place, for Lost Valley was quick upon the +trigger, tragedy often swept in upon hilarity. + +In the opening stood Tharon Last, her blue eyes black and sparkling, +her tawny skin cream white, her lips tight-set and pale. She wore a +plain dark dress that buttoned up the front, and at her hips there +hung her father's famous guns. Her two hands rested on their butts. + +Behind her head against the starlight there was the dim suggestion of +massed sombreros. + +For a moment she stood so in breathless silence, scanning the room. + +Then her glance came to rest on the face of Buck Courtrey. + +"Men," she said clearly, "we buried Jim Last today. El Rey brought him +home last night--finished. You all know he was a gun man--th' best in +these parts. It was no gun man that killed him, in fair-an'-open, for +he was shot in th' back. It was a skunk, a coyote, a son-of-th'-devil, +an' I'm goin' to kill him." + +At the last word there was a lightning movement at the bar as +Courtrey's hand flashed at his hip, a flash of fire, a shot that went +high and lodged in the deep beam above the door, for the weazened form +of the snow-packer had leaped up against him in the same instant. + +The girl had not moved. Her hands still rested on the guns in their +holsters. Now a grim smile curled her mouth, but her eyes did not +laugh. + +"I'm a-goin' t' kill him," she said quietly, still in that clear +voice, "but I'll do it accordin' to th' law Jim Last laid down to me +all my life--in certainty. I know--but I'll prove. We hain't no +assassins, Jim Last an' me. Some day I'll draw--an' my father's killer +must beat me to it." + +Without another word Tharon backed out on the porch, the door swung to +at the pull of an unseen hand on the iron strap by the hinge. + +There was again the rattle and creak, the whirl of hoofs, and in the +breathless stillness that lasted for a few seconds, there came to the +strained ears in the Golden Cloud the clip-clap of a singlefooter as +the great El Rey led out of town. + +Then Buck Courtrey, flushed and unsmiling, sent his coldly narrowed +eyes over the crowded room, man by man. Laughter came, a trifle +cracked and forced, cards slapped on the tables, chairs creaked as the +players drew up again, the dancers swung into step as the fiddle took +up its interrupted strain. + +Only Lola, over by the door, looked for a pregnant moment at +Courtrey's face, and shut her lips in a hard, straight line. + +Then, lastly, the cold eyes of the king came down to rest upon the +weazened figure of the snow-packer busily engaged in rolling up his +sacks for departure. If the strange old creature knew and felt their +promise, he gave no sign as he trundled himself outdoors on his bandy +legs. + +"Skunks," said Old Pete, as he fumbled with his straps about the +patient burros, "are plumb pizen t' pure flesh." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE HORSES OF THE FINGER MARKS + + +At Last's Holding a change had taken place. The sun of spring still +shone as brightly, the work of the place went on as usual. The riders +went at dawn and came at dusk, their herds lowing across the rolling +green spaces, the days were as busy as they had ever been, but it +seemed as if Last's waited for something that would never happen, for +some one who would never come. Conford, quiet, forceful, businesslike, +carried on the work without a ripple. To a casual eye all things were +as they had been. But to the keen eyes in the tanned faces of Last's +riders the change was appallingly apparent. They saw it creep day by +day into their lives, felt it in the very atmosphere, and it was grim +and promising. + +Old Anita felt it and watched with dim and wistful eyes. Pretty young +Paula from the Pomo Indian settlement far to the north of the Valley +under the Rockface felt it and was more silent, cat-like of step than +ever. Jose, always full of laughter at his outside work, was sobered. + +For this change was not material, but spiritual, and it had to do with +Tharon, who was now the mistress of Last's. + +She no longer sang her wordless songs, no longer played for hours on +the little old melodeon by the western door. Something had gone from +the brightness of her face, a shadow had come instead. She was just as +swift and gentle in her care for all the things of every day, as +efficient and painstaking, but she did not laugh, and the tiny lines +that had characterized her father's blue eyes, began to show +distinctly about her own. + +They began to take on the look of great distances, as if she gazed +far. + +And for exactly three hours each day there could be heard the +monotonous bark-bark-bark of the big guns Jim Last had given her in +his final hour. To Billy Brent there was something terrible in this. +Bred to violence and the quick disasters of the country as he was, he +could not reconcile this grim practice with Tharon Last, the sane and +loving girl who could not bear the sight of suffering. + +"I tell you, Curly," he complained to his friend of nights when they +came in and lounged in the soft dusk by the bunk-house, "it's +unnatural. Not that I don't pay full respect to Jim Last's memory, +an' him th' best man in all this hell-bent Valley, but it ain't right +an' natural fer no woman t' do what she's doin'. Ain't she Jim Last's +own daughter already with th' guns? Sure. Can drive a nail nigh as far +as he could. Quick as Wylackie Bob on th' draw an' as certain, now. +Then why must she keep it up?" + +Curly, more silent in his ways but given to thought, studied the stars +that rode the darkening heavens and shook his head. + +"Let her alone," he said once, "it was Last's command, an' he knew +what he was about even if he was toppin' th' rise of the Big Divide. + +"He said 'you'll have to pro--'--you rec'lect? He meant _protect_ an' +unless I miss my guess, Billy, he'd have added '_yourself_' if th' +hand of Ol' Man Death hadn't stopped his words. Somethin' happened out +there in th' Cup Rim that day when Last got his that had to do with +Tharon, an' he knew she'd be in danger. Let her alone." + +So Billy let her alone, as did the rest. She went her ways, saw to the +garden and made the butter in the cool springhouse, and sat in the +window seat in the twilights. She liked to have the men come in as +usual, but the talk these times was desultory, failing and brightening +with forced topics, to fail again and drop into silence while the dim +red lights of the smokers glowed in the shadows. + +Time and again she stirred and sighed, and they knew that once again +she waited for Jim Last, listened for the clip-clap of El Rey coming +home along the sounding ranges. + +Once, on a night when there was no moon and the tree-toads sang in the +cottonwoods by the spring, the girl, sitting so in the familiar +window, suddenly dropped her head on her knees and sobbed sharply in +the silence. + +"Never again!" she said thickly from the folds of her denim skirt, +"I'll never see him comin' home again!" + +The riders stirred. Sympathy ached in their hearts, but not a man had +speech to comfort her. It was Billy, the impulsive, who reached a hand +to her shoulder and gripped it hard. Tharon reached up and touched the +hand in gratitude. + +It was about this time, when the master of Last's Holding had lain a +month beneath the staring mound under the pine tree out to the east +where they had buried Harkness, that Jose finished a work of art. For +many days he had laboured secretly in a calf-shed out behind the small +corrals, and in his slim dark fingers there was beauty unleashed. +Finest carving he knew, since his forbears, peons across the Border, +had spent their lives upon the beams of the Missions. None had taught +Jose. It was in his blood. Therefore, from a block of the hard grey +stone of the region, which was almost like granite, he fashioned a +cross, as tall as Tharon herself, struck it out freehand and true, and +set upon its austere face fine tracery of vines and Jim Last's name. +He took into the secret Billy and Curly, since these two he was sure +of, and together they hauled the huge thing out and set it up. + +When Tharon, looking to the east with dawn, as was her habit, beheld +this silent tribute to the man she had so loved, she leaned her +forehead against the deep window-case and wept from the depths. + +Then she went out to see it and with a knife she set her own mark +thereon--a tiny cross scratched in the headpiece, another in the arm +that stretched toward all that was mortal of poor Harkness. + +"Two," she said, dry-eyed, while the glorious dawn shot up to bathe +the world in glory, "full pay for you both." + + * * * * * + +El Rey, stamping in his own corral, lifted his beautiful head, scanned +the wide reaches that spread away in living green, and tossing up his +muzzle, sent out on the silence a ringing call. He cocked his silver +ears and listened. No clear-cut human whistle answered him. Once more +he called and listened. + +Then he lowered his head and stepped along the fence. His great body, +shining like blue satin with a silver frost upon it, gave and lifted +with every step. The pastern joints above his striped hoofs were +resilient as pliant springs. The muscles rippled in his shoulders, the +blue-white cascade of his silver tail flowed to his heels, his mane +was like a cloud upon the arch of his neck. He was strength and beauty +incarnate, a monster machine of living might. + +Unrest was upon him. Life had become stagnant, a tasteless thing. He +was keen for the open stretches, honing to be gone down the wind. He +fretted and ate out his heart for the freedom of the range. Old Anita, +passing at some work or other, stopped and gazed at him for a +compassionate moment. + +"You, too, _grande caballo_," she said, "there is naught but grief at +Last's Holding. _Tharone querida_" she called into the house, "come +here." + +Tharon came and stood in the kitchen door. + +"What, Anita?" she asked gently. + +"El Rey," answered the old woman, "he calls and calls and none come to +him. He, too, needs help, _Corazon_. Why not take him for a run along +the plain? It will help you both." + +For a long time the girl stood, considering. + +"I have not cared to ride lately, Anita," she said, "but you are +right. El Rey should not be left to fret." + +She stepped back in the house, then came out, and she had added +nothing to her attire save her daddy's belt and guns. Without these +she never left the Holding now. + +Bareheaded, slender, she was a thing of beauty, and there was a quiet +command about her which subdued the great El Rey himself, the proudest +horse in all the Valley, outside of Courtrey's Ironwoods, Bolt and +Arrow. + +Between these three horses there was much comment and discussion, +though they had never been tested out together. + +She found a bridle on a corral post, a strong affair of rawhide, +heavily ornamented with silver, its bit a Spanish spade. Without this +she could not hold the stallion, and he was no pet to come at her +caressing call of the double notes. + +Only Jim Last himself had ever tamed El Rey to do his bidding by word +of mouth. The horse had had one master. He would never have another. + +Even now, when Tharon bridled him and opened the big gate, promising +him his long-desired flight, he seemed not to see her, his beautiful +big eyes looked through, beyond her, as if he sought another. There +was some one for whom he waited, listened. + +From a block of wood set in the yard the girl gathered the rein tight +in her hand, balanced a moment, and leaped up astride the shining +back. + +With a snort like a pistol shot El Rey flung up his great head, leaped +into the air and was gone. Around the corner of the adobe house he +went, out across the trampled yard, and away along the open to the +south, running level and free. With the first sink-and-lift Tharon had +slipped back a full span. Now she wound her fingers in the white cloud +of mane that flailed her face and edged up, inch by inch. When her +knees were well up on the huge shoulders that worked beneath them +powerfully, she gathered the reins, one in each hand, leaned down +along the outstretched neck and let the great king run. The wind sang +by her ears in a rising whine, the green prairie was a flowing sea +beneath her, the thunder of the pounding hoofs was stupendous music. +Tharon shut her eyes and rode, and for the first time since Jim Last's +death a sense of joy rose in her like a tide. + +She had ridden El Rey before, many times. She had felt him sail +beneath her down the open prairies and always it was so, as if the +earth slid by, as if the note of the wind lifted minute by minute. She +had wondered often about this--how long it would continue to rise with +El Rey's rising speed, how long before he would reach a maximum above +which he could not go, a place where the singing note would remain +fixed. + +She had never known him reach that point. Always he could go faster. +Always he had reserves. + +Far out ahead she saw a bunch of cattle feeding. They were lazily +circling in a wide arc, content under the beaming sun. Near them sat a +rider on a buckskin horse, Bent Smith on Golden. This Golden was one +of the prides of Last's Holding. Bigger than Drumfire or Redbuck, he +ranked next to El Rey himself in speed, for his slim legs, slapped +smartly with the distinguishing finger marks on the outside of the +knee, were long and shapely, his back short-coupled and strong, his +withers low, his narrow hips high. Tharon bore hard on El Rey's bit, +leaned her body to the left, and they swung in toward Bent and Golden +in a beautiful sweeping curve that brought the cowboy up in his +stirrups with his hat a-wave above him. + +"Good girl!" he yelled with leaping gladness as the superb pair shot +by. "Good girl! Go to it!" + +Tharon loosed a hand long enough to wave back and was gone, on down +the sloping land toward the country of the Black Coulee, her dark +skirts fluttering at her knees, the two heavy guns pounding her thighs +at every jump. + +It was a long time before El Rey came down from his sweeping flight. + +He had been too long holden in cramping bars. The free winds and the +rolling earth filled him with a sort of madness. He ran with joy and +the surety of unbounded power. + +The rider, left far behind, watched them anxiously for a time, thought +of following, glanced at his cattle, remembered the gun man's heritage +and turned to his business. + +The sun was well down over the western Rockface when Tharon and El Rey +came back to Last's Holding. The riders were bringing in the cattle, +dust was rising in clouds above the moving masses. From the ranch +house came the savory smells of cooking. + +[Illustration: NEAR THEM SAT A RIDER ON A BUCKSKIN HORSE] + +The stallion was limber as a willow. He tossed his handsome head and +his eyes were bright as stars set in his silver face. Life was at high +tide in him, flowing magnificently. Tharon, her cheeks whipped into +pulsing colour by the wind and the bounding speed, her tawny mane +loosed from its bands and flying in a cloud behind her, smoothed back +from her face, looked wild as an Indian. As she drew up and sat +watching the work of the evening, she smiled for the first time in +many days, and Jack Masters, passing, felt his heart leap with +gladness. + +When the mistress of Last's was sad, so were her people. + +When the last big corral gate had swung to and the boys turned in to +unsaddle, she touched El Rey with a toe and went over among them. + +"Line up the horses, boys," she said, "I want to see them all together +once more. Somethin' came back in me today--somethin' I been missing +for a long time. I'll be myself again." + +Billy turned Redbuck to face her, dropped his rein. Curly rode up on +Drumfire. These two were red roans, dead matches. Bent brought Golden +and stood him alongside. From far at the back of the corral they +called Conford and Jack, who came wondering, the former on Sweetheart, +true sister of El Rey, almost as big, almost as fast, almost as +beautiful. + +Silver-blue roan, silver-pointed, slim, graceful, springy, she had not +a single dark spot on her except the sharp black bars of the finger +marks outside her knees. + +"You darlin'!" said Tharon as she wheeled in line. + +Then came Jack on Westwind, and he was another buckskin, paler than +Golden, most marvelously pointed in pure chestnut brown. His finger +marks were brown instead of black--the only horse at the Holding so +distinguished, for no matter of what shade or colour, in all the +others these peculiar marks were jet black. Five splendid creatures +they stood and pounded the ringing earth, tossed their heads and +waited, though they had all been far that day and it was feeding +time. + +Out in the horse corrals there were many more of their breed, slim, +wiry horses, toughened and hardened by long hours and daily work, but +these were the flower of Last's, the prized favourites. + +For a long time Tharon sat and watched them, noting their perfect +condition, their glistening skins, their shining hoofs, many of which +were striped, another characteristic. + +"I don't believe," she said at last, "that there's a bunch of horses +in Lost Valley to come nigh 'em. Ironwoods or anything else--I'd back +th' Finger Marks." + +"So would we," said Conford quietly, "though we've seen th' Ironwoods +run--a little." + +"That's th' word, Burt," said Curly, "a little. Who of us has ever +seen Courtrey let Bolt run like he wanted to? Not a darned one. I've +seen that big bay devil pull till th' blood dripped from his mouth." + +"Sure," put in Masters, "I've seen that, too--but I was lyin' up on +th' Cup Rim oncet, watchin' a couple mavericks fer funny work, an' +Courtrey an' Wylackie Bob come along down that way on Bolt an' +Arrow--an' they wasn't a-holdin' them then. Lord, Lord, how they was +goin'! Two long red streaks as level as your hand, an' I swear my +heart came up in my throat to see 'em, an' I almost hollered. It was +pretty work--pretty work, an' no mistake." + +Tharon looked over at him. + +"Fast as El Rey, Jack?" + +"Who could tell?" said the man. "I know it was some speed, an' that is +all." + +The girl struck a hand on the king's shoulder so passionately that he +jumped and snorted. + +"Some day," she said tensely, "El Rey will run th' Ironwoods off their +feet--an' I'll run th' heart out of their master, damn him! Put th' +horses out. It's supper time." + +She threw her right limb over the stallion's neck swiftly and with +lithe grace, and slid abruptly to the ground. + +As she did so there came the sound of hoofs on the hard earth at the +corner of the house, and a stranger came sharply into sight. + +He drew up and nodded. Conford, just turning away, turned quickly back +and came forward. + +"Howdy," he said. + +The man, tall, lean, dark, returned the salute with another nod. + +He was covered with dust, as if he had ridden far and been a long time +coming. His clothes were much the worse for wear, but they were mostly +leather, which takes wear standing, as it were. The wide hat pulled +low over his piercing dark eyes, was ornamented with a vanity of +silver. + +The riding cuffs at his wrists were studded profusely with the same +metal, as was the wide belt that spanned his narrow waist. + +He wore a three days' beard, and a black moustache dropped its long +points to the edge of his jaw. Black hair showed beneath the hat. He +was a remarkable figure, even in Lost Valley, and he commanded +attention. + +He carried the customary two guns of the country, and he bestrode a +horse that was as noticeable as himself. + +This horse was no denizen of Lost Valley. It was an utter alien. Its +colour was a dingy black, as if it had recently been through fire, its +coat rough and unkempt. Its long head was heavy and slug-like, its +nose of the type known among horsemen as Roman. It was roughly built, +raw-boned and angular, and of so stupendous a size that the man atop, +who was six foot tall himself, seemed small by comparison. + +However, for all its ugliness, it possessed a seeming of vast power, a +suggestion of great strength. + +The stranger looked the group over with his keen, hard eyes, and spoke +in a slow drawl. + +"I reckon," he said, "I'm a-ridin' th' wrong trail. I hain't expected +hyar." + +And turning abruptly, without another word, he jogged away around the +house and started down the long slope already greying with the coming +night. + +The foreman and the five punchers clamped over to the corner of the +kitchen and watched him in speculative silence. Tharon came along and +stood by Billy, her hand on the boy's arm. To Billy that sober touch +confused the distances, set the strange rider dancing on the slope. + +"H'm," said Conford, his grey eyes narrow, "come from far an's goin' +somewheres. I'll watch that duck. He looks like he's a record man to +me." + +At supper there was much speculation about the stranger. + +"I'll lay a month's pay he come from Texas," said Billy, casting a +side glance at his pal Curly, "them long lankys usually do. An' +somehow it shows in their eyes, sort o' fierce an'--" + +"Billy," said Tharon severely, "if I was Curly I'd take a fall out of +you. He can do it, _you_ know that an' _I_ know it." + +"Thanks, Miss Tharon," said Curly in his soft Southern drawl, "if you +feel that-a-way about it, w'y, I don't care what _no_ little +yellow-headed whipper-snapper from up Wyomin' way says to th' +contrary." + +Billy was a bit abashed, but he stubbornly supported his contention +that the stranger was a bad-man from Texas. + +"Plenty bad-men right here in Lost Valley," said the girl quietly, +"an' th' breed ain't dyin' out as I can see. Th' settlers need a new +leader--now that Jim Last's gone." And she fell to playing absently +with her fork upon the cloth. + +The boys changed the subject hurriedly. + +"I found a dead brandin' fire in th' Cup Rim yesterday, Burt," said +Masters, "quite a scrabbled space around it. Looked like some one'd +branded several calves." + +"Don't doubt it," said the foreman. "Careful as we are there's always +likely to be stragglers. An' to be a straggler's to be a goner in +this man's land." + +"Unless he belongs t' Last's," said the irrepressible Billy. "I'll lay +that fer every calf branded by Courtrey's gang we'll get back two." + +"Billy," said Tharon again, "Jim Last wasn't a thief. Neither will his +people be thieves. For every calf branded by Courtrey, _one calf_ +wearin' th' J. L.--an' one calf only. We don't steal, but we won't +lose." + +"You bet your boots an' spurs throwed in, we won't," said the boy +fervently. + +As they rose from the table with all the racket of out-door men there +came once more the sound of a horse's hoofs on the hard earth +outside. + +Last's Holding was a vast sounding-board. No one on horseback could +come near without advertising his arrival far ahead. + +This time it was no stranger. Tharon went to the western door to bid +him 'light. + +It was John Dement from down at the Rolling Cove. He was a thin, worn +man, who looked ten years beyond his forty, his face wrinkled by the +constant fret and worry of the constant loser. + +Tonight he was strung up like a wire. His voice shook when he returned +the hearty greetings that met him. + +"Boys," he said abruptly, "an' Tharon--I come t' tell ye all +good-bye." + +"Good-bye! John, what you mean?" + +Tharon went forward and put a hand on his arm. Her blue eyes searched +his face. + +The man stood by his horse and struck a tragic fist in a hard palm. + +"That's it. I give up. I'm done. I'm goin' down the wall come day--me +an' my woman an' th' two boys. Got our duffle ready packed, an' Lord +knows, it ain't enough t' heft th' horses. After five year!" + +There was the sound of the hopeless tears of masculine failure in the +man's tragic voice. His fingers twisted his flabby hat. + +"Hold up," said Conford, pushing nearer, "straighten out a bit, +Dement. Now, tell us what's up." + +"Th' last head--th' last hoof--run off last night as we was comin' in +with 'em a leetle mite late. Had ben up Black Coulee way, an' it got +dark on us. Just as we got abreast o' th' mouth of th' Coulee, where +th' poplars grow, three men come a-boilin' out. They was on fast +horses--o' course--an' right into th' bunch they went, hell-bent. +Stampeded the hull lot. You know my bunch'd got down t' about a +hundred head--don't know what I ben a-hangin' on fer, only a man +hates t' give up an' own hisself beat out. An' my woman--she's a +fighter. + +"She kep' standin' at my back like, oh, like--well, she kep' a-sayin' +'We'll win out yet, John, you see. Right'll win ev'ry time.' You see +we are just ready to get th' patent on our land. She couldn't give +that up, seems like. All this time gone an' nothin' gained. So we ben +a-hangin' on when things went from bad to worse. Th' herd's been +a-goin' down an' down. Calves with their tongues slit so's they'd lose +their mothers--fed up in some coulee by hand an' branded. Knowed 'em +by my own colour cattle, w'ich I drove in here five year ago--th' +yellers. + +"Mothers killed outright an' th' calves branded. Oh, I know it +all--but what could I do? Kep' gettin' poorer an' poorer. Couldn't +afford enough riders t' protect 'em. Then couldn't afford any an' +tried t' make it go as th' boys got older. Courtrey, damn him, wants +me offen that piece o' land a-fore th' patent's granted. Him with his +twenty thousan' acres of Lost Valley now! An' how'd he get it? False +entry, that's what! How many men's come in here, took up land, 'sold +out' to Courtrey an' went? Or didn't go. A lot of 'em _didn't go_. We +all know that. An' who dares to speak in a whisper about it? Th' men +that did wouldn't go--never--nowheres." + +There was the bitterness of utter defeat and hatred in the shaking +voice. The tree-toads, beginning their nightly chorus from the wet +places below the cottonwoods, emphasized the dreariness of the +recital, the ancient hopelessness of the weak beneath the heel of the +oppressor. + +Dement ceased speaking and stood in silhouette against the last +yellow-and-black of the dead sunset. The protruding apple in his +hawk-like throat worked up and down grotesquely. + +For a long moment there was utter silence. + +Then he began again. + +"I knowed I wasn't welcome in th' Valley when I hadn't ben here more'n +six months. Th' first leetle string o' fence I put up fer corrals went +down, mysterious, as fast as I could fix it. Th' woman's garden was +broke open an' trampled to dust by cattle, drove in. Winter ketched us +with mighty leetle t' eat in th' way o' truck. Next year she guarded +it herself some nights, sleepin' by day, an' oncet she took a shot at +some one that come prowlin' around. They let her fence alone after +that, but what'd they do outside? Killed all th' hogs we had one night +an' piled 'em in a heap in th' front door yard! That was hint enough, +but I kep' a-thinkin' that ef we behaved decent like, an' minded our +own business we sartainly must win out. We did," he added grimly after +a little pause, "like hell. An' how many others of th' settlers has +gone through th' like? We ain't no tin gods ourselves, I own, but we +got t' fight fire with fire. Only I ain't got no more light-wood," he +finished quaintly, "I got to quit." + +There was another silence while the tree-toads sang. Then the man held +out his hand, hardened and warped with the unceasing toil of those +tragic years. + +"Good-bye, Tharon," he said, "I wisht Jim Last was here. With him gone +Lost Valley's in Courtrey's hand an' no mistake. He was th' only man +dared face him an' hold his own. Last's was th' only head th' weaker +faction had, its master their only leader. While he lived we had some +show, us leetle fellers. Now there ain't no leader. Th' ranchers'll go +out fast now. It'll be a one-man valley." + +In the soft darkness Tharon took the extended hand, held it a moment +and laid her other one upon it. + +"John Dement," she quietly said, "I want you to go home an' bar your +house for fight. Fix up your fences, unpack your duffle. In the +morning my riders will drive down to your place a hundred head o' +cattle. You put your brand on em. There's goin' to be no one-man +doin's in Lost Valley yet awhile--not while Jim Last's daughter +lives. See," she dropped his hand and pointed to the east where the +tall pine lifted to the stars, "out yonder there's a cross at Jim +Last's grave--an' there's my mark on it. Th' settlers have a leader +still--an' I name myself that leader. I'm set against Courtrey, now +an' forever. I mean to fight him t' th' last inch o' ground in Lost +Valley, th' last word o' law, th' last drop o' blood, both his an' +mine. You go down among 'em--th' settlers--an' take 'em that word from +me. Tell 'em Jim Last's daughter stands facin' Courtrey, an' she'll +need at her back t' fight him every man in Lost Valley that ain't a +coward." + +When the settler had gone, incoherent and half-incredulous, Conford +drew a long breath and looked at his mistress in the dusk. + +"Tharon, dear," he said so gently that his words were like a caress +"you're jest a-breakin' your riders' hearts. You're heapin' anxiety on +us mountain-high. Now what on earth'll we do?" + +Young Billy Brent pushed near and slapped a hand against a doubled +fist. His eyes were sparkling like harbour lights, his voice was like +the sound of running fire. + +"Do?" he cried. "Do? We'll stand behind her so tight they can't see +daylight through, an' we'll fight with an' for her every inch o' that +way, every word o' that law, every drop o' that blood! Who says +Last's ain't on th' map in Lost Valley?" Tharon smiled and touched him +again. + +"Billy," she said softly, "you're after my own heart. Now get to bed. +I want t' think." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE MAN IN UNIFORM + + +Spring was warming swiftly into summer. Where the gently sloping +ranges went up in waves and swells toward the uplands at the east, the +bright new green had turned to a darker shade. The tiny purple and +white flowers had disappeared to give place to sturdier ones of +crimson and gold. The veil of water that fell sharply down the face of +the Wall for a thousand feet at the Valley's southern end had thinned +to sheerest gauze. In the Canon Country the snow had disappeared from +most of the high points. Red, black, yellow, the great face of the +encircling Wall stood in everlasting majesty, looking down upon the +level cup of Lost Valley. The unspeakable upheaval of peaks and crags, +of canyons and splits and unfathomable depths, was almost a sealed book +to the denizens of the Valley. There were those who knew False Ridge. + +There were those who said they knew more. Many a man had adventured +therein, and few had returned to tell of their adventures. Canon Jim +had not returned. Not that he was a loss to the community, or that +they mourned him, but his absence pointed again to the formidable +secretive power of the Canon Country. + +Tharon Last, standing in her western door, could look across the +Valley's deceptive miles and see the huge black seams and fissures +that rent the grim face. These splits and canyons were peculiar in that +none came down to the Valley's floor, their yawning doorways being, in +every instance, set from two hundred to five hundred feet up the +Wall. + +Often the girl watched them in the changing lights and her active mind +formed many a conjecture concerning them. + +"Some day," she told young Paula, "I'll go into the Canon Country and +see it for myself." + +"Saints forbid, Senorita!" said Paula, who had no love for the +mysterious, and who was more Mexic than Porno, "there are demons and +devils there!" + +"Yes, I doubt not, Paula," said Tharon grimly. "They say Courtrey +knows th' Canons, an' when he's there, it's peopled, an' no mistake! + +"But it must be beautiful--beautiful! Why--there's a thousand feet of +crevasse on every hand, I know, steps an' benches an' weathered faces +that no man can climb. They say there's bright waters that tumble +down like th' Vestal's Veil and sink into holes without an outlet. +Just go away in the rock. There's strange flowers an' stunted trees. +An' they tell of th' Cup of God, a hidden glade so beautiful that th' +eye of man has never seen its like. All my life it's called me, th' +Canon Country. + +"Don't you believe, Paula, that there's somethin' there for me? Some +reason why I know I must some day go into its heart an' give myself up +to it for a time? If I was free," she finished with a sigh, "if I was +my own woman, wholly, I'd go soon. There's rest an' peace up there, I +know--and a place to think of Jim Last without such bitterness that my +heart turns t' gall." + +She shook her bright head against the doorpost and shut her soft lips +into a straight line. + +"Nope," she finished sadly, "I ain't my own woman yet." + + * * * * * + +"Tharon," said Billy Brent this day, clanking around the corner of the +adobe house, his leather chaps flapping with every step, his yellow +hair curling boyishly under his hat-brim. "Tharon, I got bad news for +you." + +There was genuine distress in his grey eyes. + +"Yes?" asked the mistress of Last's, straightening up. + +"Yes, sir, an' I hate like hell t' tell it." + +"Out with it, Billy. What's wrong?" + +"Somebody's dynamited th' Crystal Spring in th' Cup Rim." + +"_What?_" + +The word was in italics. Its one syllable told all one might care to +know of the importance of Billy's news. + +"Yes. Opened her up fer two square yards. Spread th' lovely old +Crystal all over th' range. An' she's gone, as sure's shootin'. +Nothin' but a lot o' wet an' dryin' mud to show for her." + +Tharon drew a long breath. + +"Courtrey's beginnin'," she said. "He's heard th' word I sent th' +settlers. He's goin' t' use th' tactics now with Last's that he's used +with every poor devil he wanted to run out of th' Valley, th' tactics +he darsent use while Jim Last lived. Well--go send Conford to me, +Billy." + +The girl sat down in the doorway and gazed sombrely out over the +summer land. + +When her foreman came and stood before her, a slim, efficient figure, +dark-faced and quiet, she had already made up her mind. + +"Burt," she said swiftly, "drive th' cattle down from th' Cup Rim +right away. We'll run those two bunches under Blue Pine an' Nick Bob +out toward th' Black Coulee. Tell 'em t' keep close t' th' others. I +trust th' Indians, but there ain't no Indian livin' can meet +Courtrey's white renegades in courage an' wits. Then we'll start right +in an' dig a well th' first well ever dug on th' open range in this +man's land." + +"Good Lord, Tharon!" said Conford, "A well!" + +"Yes. Th' livin' water holes have been th' pride of th' Valley, I +know, but we'll fix this well of ours so's even Courtrey will respect +it." + +There was a grim note in the golden voice. + +"How?" asked Conford uneasily. + +"Dig it first," said Tharon, "then I'll tell you." + +What the mistress said, went. Therefore, the next morning saw a +disgusted bunch of cowboys and Indian _vaqueros_ setting to with a +will at a spot much nearer the Holding than the Crystal had been, and +it took a much shorter time to reach water in a good gravel bed than +any one had dreamed. + +In three days the thing was done and Conford presented himself, +smiling. + +"Now, Miss Secrecy," he said, "come on with th' mystery." + +Tharon went in to the big desk which Jim Last had used and which was +now her own, and returned with a square white slab of pine, +elaborately smoothed and finished by Jose. + +"Read that," she said, and held it up, face out. + +Printed neatly upon its shining surface, in the jet-black ink that old +Anita made from the berries of a certain bush which grew at the foot +of the cliffs across the Valley, were these words: + +"This well is planted. I hope it blows up the first thief who tries to +destroy it. Tharon Last." + +Conford took the slab, scratched his head, holding his hat between +thumb and finger, read it over, read it again, smiled, and then looked +up. + +"Might work," he said, "an' you're givin' out your stand an' knowledge +broadcast, ain't you?" + +"Certainly am," said Tharon briefly. "I said I'd fight, an' I want th' +whole Valley t' know it." + +"It does," said Conford with conviction. "I heard in Corvan yesterday +that John Dement has rode th' range continuous since he finished +brandin' his new herd to tell th' settlers about it." + +"Good," said Tharon, "couldn't be better. There's got to be a change +in Lost Valley sooner or later. Might as well be sooner." + +And with that thought the girl let her quick mind sweep out to take in +the future. She sent Conford off to post her placard and herself went +rummaging among the possibilities which her defy had placed before +her. She knew that Courtrey would be coldly furious. He had lived his +life as suited him, had taken what and where he listed, by fair means +or foul, and though every soul in the Valley knew him and his methods, +none had spoken the convicting word. It was the pen-stroke at the end +of the death-warrant to do so. + +She knew that the faction of the settlers hated him and his with a +vitriolic passion, that they were in the minority, that they were no +tin gods themselves, and that they were being beaten out, one by one. + +Year by year Courtrey had added to his vast acreage, and it was a +matter of common knowledge how he had done it. He was rich, powerful, +bullying, a man whose self-aggrandizement knew no limit, whose merest +whim was his law, whose will must not be thwarted. Year by year his +_vaqueros_ drove down the Wall herds of fat cattle, their brands +blurred, insolently raw and careless. Many a hapless man had stood and +seen his own stock go by in Courtrey's band and dared not open his +mouth. In fact Courtrey had been known to stop and chat with such a +one, smiling his evil smile and enjoying the helpless chagrin of his +victim. + +"Insolent ruffian!" muttered Tharon this day, frowning above her +daddy's pipes on the desk top. "He's goin' t' get one run for his +money from now till one of us is whipped. It may be me, but I'll +leave my mark on him, so help me! + +"Straight killin's too good for him. I want to smash him first." + +"Tharon, mi _Corazon_," said Anita, stopping soft-foot beside her, "it +is bad for one to talk so, to himself. The Evil One works on the mind +that way." + +Tharon laughed. + +"Perhaps, Anita," she said shortly, "it is with the Evil One I have t' +do, an' no mistake." + +The old woman crossed herself and went away, her wrinkled face dim +with care. And Tharon dressed herself neatly, put a ribbon on her +hair, set her wide hat carefully on her head, buckled on her heavy +gun-belt, and went to the corral for El Rey. Her daddy's saddle was +her own now, a huge affair carved and ornamented, profusely studded +with silver. + +Along the right side below the pommel ran a darker stain, Jim Last's +blood, set before his daughter like a star. + +She mounted the silver stallion and went away down along the summer +land, a shaft of light shooting through the green of the ranges. + +Far over to her left she could see her cattle, beautiful bunches +spread like figures in a tapestry. The figures of her riders were +small dots on the outskirts. + +El Rey, always hard on the bit, always strong-headed, wanted to run +and she swung loose her rein and let him go. But run as he might, +there was always in his speed that rising note, that seeming of +reserve power. + +She passed the head of Black Coulee, swung out across the edge of +Rolling Cove, thundered down to the ford of the Broken Bend. Here she +let the stallion drink, deep draughts that would have slowed a lesser +horse. El Rey went up the bank beyond the ford like a charging engine, +squared away and stretched out to finish his run. He was within three +miles of Corvan, set like a stone in a smooth green surface, before he +came down and lifted his shoulders into his gait. With the first rock +and swing of the singlefoot, Tharon smiled and settled herself more +comfortably in the saddle. This was joy to her, this beautiful +syncopation, this poetic marked time that reeled off the miles beneath +her and would scarcely have shaken a pebble from her hat-brim. + +As she struck the outskirts of the little town the unmistakable sound +of El Rey's iron-shod hoofs brought heads into doors, children at the +house corners to look upon her. She came down the main street at a +smart clip, to bring up with a slide at the hitch-rail before +Baston's store where the monthly mail was handled. There were horses +tied there, and among them she saw what caused her to look twice with +a narrowing of her keen eyes--a huge, raw-boned, black, rusty and +slug-headed, among the Ironwood bays from Courtrey's Stronghold. + +"H'm," she told herself quietly, "so there's where he was expected." + +She tied El Rey to himself, far from the rest, for she knew his +imperious temper and that trouble would ensue if he was near strange +horses. + +Then she went into Baston's with her meal-sack on her arm. This +meal-sack was a part of her accoutrement, a regular carry-all for such +small purchases as she must take home--a roll of print for Paula, some +tobacco for the men, a dozen spools of the linen thread which was so +much prized among the women of Lost Valley. + +As she stepped in the open door her quick glance went over the big +room with a comprehensiveness which catalogued its inmates accurately +and instinctively. Courtrey was not there, though his great bay, Bolt, +stood outside. However, Wylackie Bob was there. This man, sitting at a +canvas covered table in a corner, idly fingering a pack of cards, was +not one to be passed over easily. He was notorious. + +Tall, slow of action, sleepy-eyed, he was treacherous as a snake, as +swift to move when necessary. He had been known to sit as he was now, +idly playing, to leap up, crouch, draw and kill a man, and be down +again at his place, idly playing, before the breath was done in his +victim. + +He was a past-master of his gun, and unlike most men of the time and +place, he carried only one. + +He was a quarter-blood Wylackie Indian. Near him sat the stranger who +had ridden the slug-head black into Lost Valley. They both looked up +as the girl entered and regarded her with smiles. + +Tharon did not look at them again. She saw, however, that they were +together, of one interest. There were two or three of the settlers in +the store, Jameson from over under the Rockface at the south, Hill +from farther up, Thomas from Rolling Cove. She spoke to these men +quietly and noticed with an inward thrill the eagerness with which +they responded. + +There was an electric something between them which told her that her +promise had, indeed, gone up and down the country, that in a subtle, +unheralded manner she stood in Jim Last's place, a head, a leader. + +She made her purchases without undue speech, got two letters in her +father's name--and these brought a smarting under her eyelids--tied up +her sack and went out without so much as a glance at the two men in +the corner. Laughter followed her, however, which set the red blood of +anger pulsing in her cheeks. + +At the end of the store porch she came face to face with Courtrey and +Steptoe Service, the sheriff of Menlo county. She swung to one side to +descend the rough steps, vouchsafing them no word or look, but Service +blocked her way. She raised her eyes and looked him full in the face, +scanning his coarse red features coolly. + +"Well?" she said sharply. + +"What's this I hear, Tharon?" asked Service, "about you a-makin' +threats?" + +"What have you heard?" she wanted to know. + +"W'y, that you're a-makin' threats." + +"Yes?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Well?" + +The sheriff flushed darker. + +"Look here, young woman,"--he raised his voice suddenly and on the +instant there was a sound of boots on the store floor and the +settlers, the two men in the corner, Baston and two clerks came +crowding out to hear, "you look a-here--don't you know it's a-gin th' +law for any one t' make a threat like you done, open an' above board, +in th' Golden Cloud th' other night?" + +Tharon shifted the meal-sack higher on her left arm. Courtrey's eyes +went down to her right hand and stayed there. + +The girl's upper lip lifted from her teeth in a sneer that was the +acme of insult. The fire was beginning to play in her blue eyes. + +"Law?" she said. "My God! Law!" + +"Yes, _law_! you young hussy, an' don't you fergit that I represent +it." + +The girl threw down the sack and flashed both hands on the gun-butts. +Courtrey, watching, was half-a-second behind her and stopped with his +hands hovering. + +"Not much, Courtrey," she said, "you fast gun man! You're too slow. +An' this ain't your game, anyway, not face t' face. You're all right +on a dark night--_an' from behind_. Fine! But you're a coward. You're +what I called you before--an assassin." + +She was pale as ashes, her eyes narrowed to blazing slits. Jim Last, +gun man, was in her like those composite pictures which show the +shadow in the substance. There was a gasp from the store porch where +Thomas stood with a shaking hand covering his lips. Baston was stuck +against his wall like a leech, rigid. These men knew that she tempted +death. + +Not a man in Lost Valley could have done it and gotten away with it. + +Tharon knew it, too, but she did not care. + +"An' now you know what you are, Courtrey. I'll tell th' same to you, +Step Service. Law! In Lost Valley? Yes, Courtrey's law! Th' law of th' +gun alone--th' law of thieves--th' law of murderers. An' you stand for +that, you bet! What were you before you took th' oath of office? Tell +me that! Th' man who killed old Mike McCrea an' took his cattle down +th' Wall! Th' whole Valley knows it--but we've never dared to say it +before!" + +The porch was lined with people now. Soft-footed Indians and Mexican +_vaqueros_, sprung from nowhere, cowboys, ranchers, women, they came +silently up and listened. + +The sheriff's red face was the colour of liver, purple and mottled +with bursting rage. His fingers worked at his sides. He set his lips, +and his small eyes never left the girl's face. + +Tharon, crouched a bit, her feet apart, her elbows crooked above her +hips, her fingers curled on her gun-butts with nice precision, wet her +own pale lips and continued: + +"An' who put you in office? That laugh of an office! Who? Why, +Courtrey--th' biggest thief, th' coldest murderer in th' country! _He_ +put you there! An' what are you good for? My daddy was shot--_in th' +back_--an' did you make one inquiry into the murder? Come out to +Last's, even to find a clew? Not you! There's only one sheriff in this +Valley--one bit o' law that will avenge his death--an' that's _me_! +Now, you two fine gentlemen--I'm goin'. There's my hand! I throw th' +cards on th' table! Shoot me in the back if you've got th' nerve. Come +out in th' open an' fight! _But you better be quick about it!_" + +With that she backed slowly along the porch, keeping them in view. + +"Get away behind me," she called. There was a path opened instantly, +the sound of shuffling feet. Along the porch she went, step by step, +stopping every moment or so to keep close hold on her advantage, every +nerve strained, every one of her faculties at the top of its power. + +She felt for the step with her foot, went down, backed through the +crowd, brought them all in the range of the guns which she flashed out +now and held upon them. + +She was ashy pale, a flaming, vibrant thing. Not a man there but knew +she was more dangerous at the moment than cool Jim Last had ever been, +for she radiated hatred of her father's killer in every bitter +glance. She had none for whom to be cautious. She was the last of her +blood. She was efficient, and she knew it. + +Courtrey knew it, and felt the sweat start on his skin. + +Service knew it, and hated her for it. + +As the girl backed clear there came into her vision a strange +figure--the straight, trim figure of a man who stood stiffly at +attention, where her imperious words had caught him. + +He wore a uniform of semi-military style, leather leggings, a flannel +shirt of butternut and a smart, tan, broad-brimmed hat. + +He, too, came in the range of the travelling guns and waited their +pleasure. + +Tharon reached El Rey. She stuck her right-hand weapon in its holster, +loosed the rein, flung it over the stallion's head, stepped around his +shoulder and mounted deftly and swiftly from the wrong side. It was a +pretty trick of horsemanship and showed up her adroitness. As El Rey +rose on his hind feet, whirling, that unwavering muzzle whirled also, +to keep in line. The king struck into his gait and his rider, facing +backward, swung away down the narrow street. Until she was well out of +range the tension held. + +Then Steptoe Service struck a fist into a palm and began to swear in +a fury, but Courtrey laughed, one of his rare, short bursts of mirth +that were more bodeful than oaths. + +He turned on his heel and strode back the way he had come. + +The stranger in the uniform walked forward, went up the steps, crossed +the porch, and, stooping, picked up the meal-sack which Tharon had +dropped. + +"Will some one kindly tell me who the young lady is and where she +lives?" he asked gravely. + +Baston, unglued from the wall, spoke up with his usual pompous +eagerness. + +"Tharon, from Last's Holdin'," he said. + +"Thanks," and the man wrapped the sack into a small bundle and tied it +with its own string. + +He stuck it under one arm and taking out a short brown pipe, proceeded +to fill and light it. + +Courtrey, halted a few rods away, eyed him sharply. + +As he turned, rolling his match to death in his fingers, the sun +struck mellowly upon something on his breast, a small, dark copper +shield which bore strange heraldry. + +At the sight Courtrey's eyes sought Service's and held them for a +swift, questioning moment. + +Strangers in Lost Valley were contraband. + +The three settlers looked covertly at each other, drifted apart, got +their horses and presently left town by different ways. + +Three hours later these men met by common consent at the head of +Rolling Cove and talked long and earnestly of the happening. They knew +that Courtrey would never take silently that bitter arraignment, that +something would transpire swiftly to show his resentment, to prove his +absolute power over Lost Valley. + +"'Tain't Tharon that'll suffer, even ef he did try t' shoot her that +night in th' Golden Cloud, because Courtrey wants her himself," said +Jameson quietly, "th' whole country knows that. There was only one man +who didn't know it, an' that was Jim Last himself. No, he won't monkey +with th' Holdin' yet, not to any great extent. It'll be us little +fellers, us others who he knows would stan' behind her. Some of us'll +lose somethin' soon, an' don't you forget it." + +"If we do," said Hill passionately, "it's time t' show our hand. We've +been hounded long enough. Th' men from Last's will be with us, we can +gamble on that." + +"Yes," said Thomas, "but it'll be war. Open war. There'll be killin's +then." + +Jameson, a quiet man with deep eyes, made a wide gesture. + +"What if there is?" he asked, "might's well be done in th' open as in +th' dark an' unseen. Might better be! I move we ride th' Valley an' +ask th' settlers to band together, under Last's, an' give our +ultimatum t' Courtrey on th' heels of this. What say you?" + +"I say yes," said Hill swiftly. Thomas, of less stern stuff, wavered. + +"Well, let's wait awhile. Let's don't be too quick. Courtrey now, he's +mighty quick an' hot. They ain't no tellin'----" + +"All right," said Jameson promptly, "suit yourself--we ain't +a-pressin' no man into this." + +"Why, now, I'm fer it, boys--that is, I'm believin' it's got t' be +done, only I counsels time." + +"No time," cried Hill, "we ben counselin' time an' quiet an' not doin' +anything to stir 'em up, an' what d' we get? Cattle stole every +spring, waterholes taken an' fenced fer Courtrey's stock right on th' +open range, hogs drove off, fences tore down, like pore old John +Dement's an' some of us left t' rot every year in some coulee. We done +waited a sight too long. Courtrey thinks he owns Lost Valley, an' he +comes near doin' it, what with his hired killers, Wylackie an' Black +Bart an' this new gun man that's just come in. I heered today he's +from Arizona, an' imported article." + +Jameson turned to him and held out his hand. + +"I'm goin' to ride tomorrow," he said. + +Hill grasped the extended hand and looked hard in the other's eyes. + +"Me, too," he said. + +Thomas, still of the timid, doubting heart, watched them with a hand +over his mouth to hide its shaking. + +Without a word the others turned their horses and rode away in +different directions. As they went farther from him in the wash of the +late light the uncertain hand came down with a jerk. Fear was in his +eyes, the deep, quaking fear of the man poor in courage, but he beat +it down. + +"Boys!" he cried in a panic, "don't leave me out! For God's sake, +don't think I ain't willin'! I'll be out come day tomorrow!" + +The others both stopped and turned in their saddles. + +"Glad to hear ye come through, Thomas," called Jameson, "you ride +south along th' Rockface. You'll go over Black Coulee way, won't ye, +Dan?" + +"I will," said Hill. + +"Good. I'll go north." + +There was a quiet grimness in the few words, for he who rode north on +such an errand tempted fate. + +Then the three separated, and there was only the silence and the red +light of the dying day at the head of Rolling Cove. + +That same evening Tharon Last sat in her western doorway and watched +the sun go down in majesty over the weathered peaks and ridges of the +Canon Country. + +Billy Brent lounged on the hard earth beside the step, his fair head +shining in the afterglow, his grey eyes upon the girl's face in a sort +of idol-worship. + +The curve of her cheek, golden with tan and red with the hue of youth, +was more to him than all the sunsets the world had ever seen. + +A deep light shone in his young eyes which, had the girl been wise, +she might have seen. But Tharon was as elemental as the kitten chasing +a moth out by the pansy bed, and could look in a man's face with the +unconscious eyes of a child. + +Now she watched the pageant of the dying day in a rapt delight. + +"Billy," she said presently, "I've often wondered if there's another +place in all the world as lovely as our Valley. Jim Last told me once +that there were places so much bigger out below, that we wouldn't be a +patchin' to them. Don't seem like there could be." + +She lifted her slim body up along the doorpost and looked long and +earnestly all up and down the wonderful stretch of country that lay +along the Wall from north to south. She could see the tiny dots that +went for the different homesteads, scattered here and there. Up at the +head there lay, hard against the frowning hills, the squat, wide blur +that was Courtrey's Stronghold. Her lips compressed at sight of it. + +"Nope," she said, shaking her head, "I don't believe he meant it. He +used to tease me a lot, you know. It's an awful big valley, an' no +mistake." + +The rider, who had drifted up along the Wall five years before, looked +down at the playing kitten and smiled with a lean crinkling of his +cheeks. + +"It's a sure-enough big place, Tharon," he said gravely, "an' it's +lovely as Eden." + +"Huh?" said Tharon, "where's that, Billy?" + +The boy sobered and looked up into her blue eyes. + +"Why, Tharon," he whispered, "that's where th' heart is." + +For a moment she regarded him. Then she smiled. + +"Billy," she said severely, "you're stringin' your boss. I'm sure +goin' to fire you, some day, like I ben a-threatenin'." + +"Do--an' hire me over!" + +"Nope." + +The girl shut her pretty lips and the man's hand crept softly up and +touched her wrist where it lay against her knee. + +"All right," he said airily, "gimme my time. I quit." + +There was an odd note in his voice, as if under the play there was a +purpose. For a second Tharon held her breath. + +"What you mean, Billy?" she asked so sharply that the boy jumped. + +Then he laughed, still in that light fashion. + +"What I said," he affirmed doggedly. + +But the mistress of Last's took a clutch on his hand that was +authority in force and leaned down to look anxiously in his face. + +"Why, Billy," she said with a quiver in her voice, "Last's couldn't +run without you, boy. An' what's more, I thought all th' riders of th' +Holdin' would stand by th' place." + +Billy, fully sobered, straightened up and held hard to that clutching +hand. The red light of the sunset flushed his cheeks, but it never set +the glow that was in his eyes. + +"Don't you know yet, Tharon," he said quietly, "when I'm a-jokin' with +you? I'd stand by Last's an' you to my last breath. Don't you know +that?" + +For a long moment Tharon regarded him gravely. + +"Yes, I do," she said, "but somehow I don't like to have you talk +that-a-way, Billy. Don't do it no more." + +"All right," promised the rider, "if you say so, Boss. Only don't talk +about firin' me, then. I'm very sensitive." + +And he looked away with smiling eyes to where the deep black shadows +fell prone into the Valley from the forbidding face of the great +Wall. + +Only the towering peaks were alight with crimson and gold, which +haloed their bulk in majestic mystery. + +Night was coming fast across Lost Valley, while the tree-toads out by +the springhouse set up their nightly chorus. + +"It's Eden," thought the man, "as sure's th' world, made an' forgot +with all its trimmin's--innocence an' sweetness an' plenty, an' th' +silence of perfect peace, not to overlook th' last unnecessary evil, +th' livin' presence of his majesty, th' devil." + +Then the light died wholly and there came the disturbing sound of +boots on the ringing stones. The rest of the riders were coming in to +claim their share of Billy's Eden. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +UNBROKEN BREAD + + +Jameson, Hill and Thomas were as good as their word. During the week +that followed the spectacular denouncement of Courtrey and Service at +Baston's store, they went quietly to every settler in the Valley and +declared themselves. In almost every instance they met with eager +pledges of approval. They knew, every man of them, that this slow +banding together for resistance against Courtrey and his power meant +open war. For years they had suffered indignities and hardship without +protest. While Jim Last lived they had had a sort of leader, an +example, though they had feared to follow in his lead too strongly. + +They had copied his methods of guarding possessions, of corraling +every cattle-brute at night, of keeping every horse under bars. Last +had looked Courtrey in the face. The rest dared not. + +Now with Last gone, they felt the lack, as if a bastion had been +razed, leaving them in the open. Secrecy in Lost Valley had been +brought to a work of art. They could hold their tongues. + +But with the new knowledge Tharon Last took on a light, a halo. + +Men spoke in whispers about her daring. They felt it themselves. + +Word of her lightning quickness with her daddy's guns, of her +accuracy, went softly all about and about, garbled and accentuated. +They said she could shoot the studs from the sides of a man's belt and +never touch him. They said she could drive a nail farther than the +ordinary man could see. They said she could draw so swiftly that the +motion of the hands was lost. + +A slow excitement took the faction of the settlers. + +But out at Last's Holding a grave anxiety sat upon Tharon's riders. +Conford knew--and Billy knew--and Curly knew more about Courtrey's +intent than some of the others. Young Paula, half asleep in the deep +recesses of the house, had witnessed that furious encounter by the +western door on the soft spring day when Jim Last had come home to die +at dusk. She knew that the look in Courtrey's eyes had been +covetousness--and she had told Jose. Jose, loyal and sensible, had +told the boys. So now there was always one or more of them on duty +near the mistress of Last's on one pretext or another. To Tharon, who +knew more than all of them put together, this was funny. + +It stirred the small mirth there was in her these days, and often she +sent them away, to have them turn up at the most unexpected times and +places. + +"You boys!" she would say whimsically, "you think Courtrey's goin' to +cart me off livin'?" + +"That's just what we are afraid of, Tharon," answered Conford gravely +once, "we know it'd not be _livin'_." + +And Tharon had looked away toward Jose's cross, and frowned. + +"No," she said, "an' it won't be any way, _livin'_ or dead." + +One night toward the end of that week a strange cavalcade wound up +along the levels, past the head of Black Coulee, forded the Broken +Bend in silence save for the stroke of hoof and iron shoe on stone, +and went toward Last's. There were thirty men, riding close, and they +had nothing to say in the darkness. + +At the Holding Tharon Last waited them on her western doorstep. + +As they rode in along the sounding-board the muffled ringing of the +hoofs seemed to the girl as the call of clarions. The heart in her +breast leaped with a strange thrill, a gladness. She felt as if her +father's spirit stood behind her waiting the first step toward the +fulfillment of her promise. + +The riders stopped in the soft darkness. There was no moon and the +very winds seemed to have hushed their whispers in the cottonwoods. + +"Tharon," said the man who rode in the lead, and she recognized the +voice of Jameson from the southern end of the Valley, "we've come." + +That was all. A simple declaration, awaiting her disposal. + +Conford, not half approving, his heart heavy with foreboding, stood at +his mistress' shoulder and waited, too. + +For a long moment there was no sound save the eternal tree-toads at +their concert. Then the girl spoke, and it seemed to those shadowy +listeners that they heard again the voice of Jim Last, sane, +commanding, full of courage and conviction. + +"I'm glad," said Tharon simply, "th' time has come when Lost Valley +has got t' stand or fall forever. Courtrey's gettin' stronger every +day, more careless an' open. He's been content to steal a bunch of +cattle here, another there, a little at a time. Now he's takin' them +by th' herds, like John Dement's last month. He's got a wife, an' from +what I've always heard, she's a sight too good fer him. But he wants +more--he wants _me_. He's offered me th' last insult, an' as Jim +Last's daughter I'm a-goin' to even up my score with him, an' it's got +three counts. You've all got scores against him." + +Here there were murmurs through the silent group. + +"Th' next outrage from Courtrey, on any one of us, gets all of us +together. For every cattle-brute run off by Courtrey's band, we'll +take back one in open day, all of us ridin'. We'll have to shoot, but +I'm ready. Are you?" + +Every man answered on the instant. + +"Then," said the girl tensely, "get down an' sign." + +There was a rattle of stirrups and bits, a creak of leather as thirty +men swung off their horses. + +Tharon stepped back in the lighted room. Her men stood there against +the walls. The settlers came diffidently in across the sill, lean, +poor men for the most part, their strained eyes and furrowed faces +showing the effect of hardships. Not a man there but had seen himself +despoiled, had swallowed the bitter dose in helplessness. + +Most of them were married and had families. Some of them had killings +to their record. Many of them were none too upright. + +Jameson was a good man, and so was Dan Hill. Thomas was merely weak. +Buford was a gun man who had protected his own much better than the +rest. McIntyre was like him. One by one they came forward as Tharon +called them by name, and leaning down, put their names or their marks +to a sheet of paper which bore these few simple lines: + +"We, the signers named below, do solemnly promise and pledge ourselves +to stand together, through all consequences of this act, for the +protection of our lives and property. For every piece of property +taken from any one of us, we shall go together and take back it, or +its worth, from whoever took it. For every person killed in any way, +but fair-and-open, we promise to hang the murderer." + +Billy had drafted the document. Tharon, whom Jim Last had taught her +letters, read it aloud. The names of Last's Holding headed it. The +thirty names and marks--and of the latter there were many--stretched +to the bottom of the sheet. + +When it was done the girl folded it solemnly and put it away in the +depths of the big desk. Old Anita, watching from the shadows of the +eating room beyond, put her _reboso_ over her head and rocked in +silent grief. She had seen tragic things before. + +Then these lean and quiet men filed out, mounted the waiting horses +and went away in the darkness, mysterious figures against the stars. + +That night Tharon Last sat late by the deep window in her own room at +the south of the ranch house. It was a huge old room, high walled and +sombre. There were bright blankets hung like pictures on the walls, +baskets marvelously woven of grass and rushes, thick mats on the floor +made in like manner and of a tough, long-fibred grass that grew down +in a swale beyond the Black Coulee, while in one corner there shone +pale in the darkness the one great treasure of that unknown mother, an +almost life-size statue of the Holy Virgin. + +Of this beautiful thing Tharon had stood in awe from babyhood. + +A half fearful reverence bowed her before it on those rare times when +Anita, throwing back to her Mexic ancestors, worshipped with vague +rites at its feet. + +Always its waxen hands bore offerings, silent tribute from the girl's +still nature. Sometimes these were the prairie flowers, little wild +things, sweet and fragile. Sometimes they were sprays of the water +vines that grew by the wonderful spring of the Holding. + +Again they were strings of bright beads, looped and falling in +glistening cascades over the tarnished gilt robes of the Virgin. + +Under the deep window there was a wide couch, piled high with a narrow +mattress of wild goose feathers and covered with a crimson blanket. +Here the girl sat with her arms on the sill and looked out into the +darkness that covered the Valley. She thought of the thirty men who +had signed her paper, riding far and by in the sounding basin, +returning to their uncertain homes. She thought of her father asleep +under his peaceful cross, of young Harkness beside him. + +She thought of Courtrey and Service and Wylackie Bob, of Black Bart +and the stranger from Arizona. They were a hard bunch to tackle. + +They had the Valley under their thumbs to do with as they pleased, +like the veriest Roman potentate of old. Her daddy had told her once, +when she was small and lonely of winter nights, strange old tales of +rulers and their helpless subjects. Jim Last could talk when he +needed, though he was a man of conserved speech. + +Yes, Courtrey was like a king in Lost Valley, absolute. She thought of +the many crimes done and laid to his door since she could remember, of +countless cattle run off, of horses stolen and shamelessly ridden in +grinning defiance of any who might dare to identify them, of Cap Hart +killed on the Stronghold's range and left to rot under the open skies, +a warning like those birds of prey that are shot and hung to scare +their kind. Her soft lips drew themselves into a hard line, very like +Jim Last's, and the heart in her ratified its treaty with the thirty +men. + +She had none to mourn her, she thought a trifle sadly--well Anita and +Paula, of course, and there were her riders. Billy would grieve--he'd +kill some one if she were killed--and Conford and Jack. + +A warm glow pervaded her being. Yes, she had folks, even if she was +the last of her blood. + +But she didn't intend to be killed. She was right, and she had +listened enough to Anita to believe with a superstitious certainty, +that right was invulnerable. For instance, if she and Courtrey should +draw at the same second, she believed absolutely, that because she was +in the right, her bullet would travel a bit the swifter, her aim be +truer. She felt in her heart with a profound conviction that some day +she would kill Courtrey. She thought of his wife, Ellen, a pale flower +of a woman, white as milk, with hair the colour of unripe maize, and +wondered if she loved the man who made her life hell, so the Valley +whispered. Tharon wondered how it would seem to love a man, as women +who were wives must love their men--if the agony of loss to Ellen +could be as acute and terrifying as hers had been ever since that soft +night in spring when her best friend, Jim Last, had come home on El +Rey. + +She thought of the grey look on his face, of the pinched line at his +nostrils' base, and the tears came miserably under her lids, she laid +her head on the cloth mat that covered the wide window ledge and wept +like any child for a time. Then she wiped her face with her hands, +sighed, and fell again to thinking. + +An hour later as she rose to make ready for bed, she thought she +caught a faint sound out where the little rock-bordered paths ran in +what she was pleased to call her garden, since a few hardy flowers +grew by the spring's trickle, and she held her breath to listen. It +was nothing, however, she thought, and turned into the deep room. + +Only the tree-toads, long since silent, knew that a cigarette, +carefully shielded in a palm, glowed in the darkness. + +Two days after this a visitor came to Last's. From far down they saw +him coming, in the mid-morning while the work of the house went +forward. Paula, bringing a pan of milk from the springhouse spied him +first and stopped to satisfy her young eyes with the unwonted +appearance of him. She looked long, and hurried in to tell her +mistress. + +"Senorita," she said excitedly, "see who comes! A stranger who has +different clothes from any other. He rides not like Lost Valley men, +either, being too stiff and straight. Come, see." + +And Tharon, busy about the kitchen in her starched print dress, +dropped everything at once to run with Paula to the western door of +the living room that they might look south. + +"_Muchachas_ both," complained old Anita, "the milk is spilled and the +_pan dulce_ burns in the oven! Tch, tch!" + +But the young creatures in the west door cared naught for her +grumbling. + +"Who can it be, to come so, Senorita?" wondered Paula, her brown cheek +beside her mistress, "is he not handsome!" + +"For mercy sake, Paula," chided Tharon laughing, "I believe you'd look +for beauty in th' ol' Nick himself if he rode up. But I've seen this +man before." + +"Where? When?" + +"In town that day I met Courtrey an' Service. I remember seen' him +come into line as I backed out--he was standin' between th' racks an' +th' porch, somewhere." And she narrowed her eyes and studied the rider +as he came jogging up across the range. + +"H'm," she said presently, "he does ride funny. I bet he ain't rode +range much in _his_ life. Stiff as a ramrod, an' no mistake." + +Then with an unconscious grace and poise that set well upon her as the +mistress of Last's, Tharon moved into the open door and waited. + +As the stranger came closer both girls subjected him to a frank and +careful scrutiny that in any other place than Lost Valley would have +been rudeness itself. + +Here it catalogued the stranger, set the style of his welcome. + +It left him stripped of surprise, outwardly, before he was within +speaking distance. + +It told the observers that he was young, of some twenty-six or seven, +that his face, the first point taken in with lightning swiftness--was +different from most faces they had ever seen, that it was open, +smiling, easy, that he was straight as a ramrod, indeed, that he rode +as if he feared nothing in the earth or the heavens, that he carried +no gun, that he wore the peculiar uniform that Tharon had noticed +before, and that there was something on his breast, a dark shield of +some sort which made them think of Steptoe Service and his disgraced +sheriff's star. This thought brought a frown to Tharon's brows, and it +was there to greet the stranger when he rode up to the step and +halted, his smart tan hat in his hand. The morning sun burned warmly +down on his dark hair, which was brushed straight back from his +forehead in a way unknown in those parts. His dark eyes, slow and deep +but somehow merry, took in the pretty picture in the door. + +"Miss Last?" he asked in a low voice. + +"Yes," said Tharon promptly and waited. + +Every one waited in Lost Valley for a stranger to make known his +business. Paula drew back behind her mistress. + +The man sat still on his horse and waited, too. The silence became +profound. The hens cackling about the barns intruded sharply. + +"Well," he said presently, "I am a stranger, and I came to see you." + +The girl in the doorway felt a hot surge of discomfort flare over her +for the first time in her life for such a reason. + +There was something in the low voice that implied a lack, accused her +of something. She resented it instantly. + +"If that is so," she said slowly, "light." + +The man laughed delightedly, and swung quickly down, dropping his +rein. Tharon noticed that. That much was natural. He held his hat +against his breast with one hand and came forward with the same +quickness, holding out the other. Tharon was not used to shaking +hands with strange men. She gave her hand diffidently, because he so +evidently expected it, and took it away swiftly. + +"My name," he said, "is Kenset--David Kenset, and I am from +Washington, D. C." + +He might as well have said Timbuctoo. Tharon Last knew little outside +her own environment. Words and names that had to do with unknown +places were vague things to her. + +"Yes?" she answered politely, "I make no doubt you've come far. Come +in. Dinner'll soon be ready," and she moved back from the door with a +smile that covered her pitiful ignorance as with a garment of gold. +When Tharon smiled like that she was wholly adorable, and the man knew +it at once. + +Why she had so quickly invited him in before he had fully declared +himself, she did not know, unless it was because of that lack in her +which his first words had implied. + +Old Anita, whose manners were the simple and perfect ones of the +Mexican coupled to a kindly heart, had taught her how to comport. + +Her easy and constant association with the riders and _vaqueros_ had +dulled her somewhat, but she could be royal on occasion. + +Now she simply stepped back in the deep cool room where the _ollas_ +swung in the windows, smiled--and she was changed entirely from the +girl of a few moments before. + +The man came in, laid his hat on the flat top of the melodeon, walked +over to a chair and sat down. There was an ease about him, a +taking-for-granted, that amazed Tharon beyond words. + +Then he looked frankly at her and began to talk as if he had known her +always. + +"I've come to live in Lost Valley, Miss Last," he said, "for a long +while, I think. Wish me luck." + +"Come here to live?" said Tharon, "a settler? Goin' to homestead?" + +He shook his head. + +"No." + +A quick suspicion seized her. Perhaps Washington was like Arizona, a +place from which they imported gun men. Only this man wore no gun, and +he had not a look of prowess. No. This man was different. + +"Then what you goin' to do?" she asked as frankly as a child. + +"First," he said, "I'm going up where the pines grow yonder and build +myself a house," and he waved a hand toward the east where the ranges +rolled up to the thickening fringes of the forest that marched back +into the ramparts of the trail-less hills. + +"I want to find an ideal spot, a glade where the pines stand round the +edges, with a spring of living water running down, and where I can +look down and over the magnificent reaches of Lost Valley. I shall +make me a home, and then I shall work." + +"Ride?" asked the girl succinctly. + +"Ride? Of course, that will be a great part of that work." + +"Who for?" + +He looked at her sharply. + +"Who for?" + +"Yes. What outfit?" + +There was a hard quality in her voice. If he had come in to ride for +Courtrey, why he must know at once that Last's was no friend of his, +now or ever. + +He caught the drift of her thought in part. + +"For no outfit, Miss Last," he said with a gentle dignity. "I am in +the employ of the United States Government." + +A swift change came over Tharon's face. + +Government! + +That was no word to conjure by in Lost Valley. Steptoe Service prated +of Gov'ment. It was a farce, a synonym for juggled duty, a word to +suggest the one-man law of the place, for even Courtrey, who made the +sheriffs--and unmade them--did it under the grandiloquent name of +Government. She looked at him keenly, and there was a sudden hardening +in her young eyes. + +"Then I reckon, Mister," she said coolly, "that you an' me can't be +friends." + +"What?" + +"No, sir." + +"Are you in earnest?" + +"Certainly am," said Tharon. "I ain't on good terms at present with +anything that has t' do with law." + +David Kenset leaned forward and looked into her face with his deep, +compelling eyes. + +"I guessed as much from my first knowledge of you the other day," he +answered, "but we are on unfamiliar ground. You have a wrong +conception of Government, a perverted idea of law and what it stands +for." + +"All right, Mister," said the girl rising. "We won't argy. I asked you +t' dinner, but I take it back. I ask ye t' forgive me my manners, but +th' sooner we part th' better. Then we won't be a-hurtin' each other's +feelin's. I'm fer law, too, but it ain't your kind, an' we ain't +likely to agree." + +She picked up his hat from where it lay on the melodeon and fingered +it a bit, smiling at him in the ingenuous manner that was utterly +disarming. + +A slow dark flush spread over the man's face. He laughed, however, and +in reaching for the hat, caught two of her fingers, whether purposely +or not, Tharon could not tell. + +"Admirable hospitality in the last frontier," he said. "But perhaps I +should not have expected anything different." + +"You make me ashamed," said Tharon straightly, "but Last's ain't +takin' chances these days. You may belong to Government, an' you may +belong to Courtrey, an' I'm against 'em both." + +She walked with him to the door, stepped out, as if with some thought +to soften her unprecedented treatment of the stranger under her roof. +She noted the trim figure of him in its peculiar garb, the proud +carriage, the even and easy comportment under insult. + +From his saddle he untied a package wrapped in paper. + +"Will you please take this?" he asked lightly, holding it out. "Just +on general principles." + +But she shook her head. + +"I can't take no favours from you when I've just took stand against +you, can I?" she asked in turn. + +"Well, of all the ridiculous----" + +The man laughed again shortly, tossed the package on the step, +mounted, whirled and rode away without a backward glance. + +Tharon stood frowning where he left her until the brown horse and its +rider were well down along the levels toward Black Coulee. + +Then a sigh at her shoulder recalled her and she turned to see the +wistful dark face of Paula gazing raptly in the same direction. + +"He was so handsome, Senorita," said the girl, "to be so hardly dealt +with." + +"Paula," said the mistress bitingly, "will you remember who you're +talkin' to? Do you want to go back to th' Pomos under th' Rockface?" + +"Saints forbid!" cried Paula instantly. + +"Then keep your sighs for Jose an' mind your manners. Pick up that +bundle." + +Swiftly and obediently the girl did as she was told, unrolling the +wrapper from the package. + +She brought to light the meal-sack which Tharon had dropped that day +on Baston's porch. + +A slow flush stained Tharon's cheeks at the sight, and she went +abruptly into the house. + +When the riders came in at night she told them in detail about the +whole affair, for Last's and its men were one, their interests the +same. + +They held counsel around the long table in the dining room under the +hanging lamp, and Conford at her right was spokesman for the rest. + +"He's somethin' official, all right, I make no doubt, Tharon," he said +when he had listened attentively, "but what or who I don't know. I +heard from Dixon about him comin' into Corvan that day, an' that he +had rode far. No one knows his business, or what he's in Lost Valley +for. He's some mysterious." + +"He's goin' to stay, so he told me," went on the girl, "goin' to build +a house up where the pines begin an' means to ride. But how'll he +live? What an' who will he ride for? He said for Government." + +"What's he mean by that?" + +"Search me." + +"Wasn't there nothin' about him different? Nothin' you could judge him +by?" asked Billy. + +"Yes, there was. He wore somethin' on his breast, a sign, a dull-like +thing with words an' letters on it." + +"So?" said Conford quickly, "what was it like, Tharon? Can't you +describe it?" + +"Can with a pencil," said Tharon, rising. "Come on in." + +She went swiftly to the big desk in the other room and rummaged among +its drawers for paper and pencil. These things were precious in Lost +Valley. + +Jim Last had had great stacks of paper, neat, glazed sheets with faint +lines upon them, made somewhere in that mysterious "below" and brought +in by pack train. It was on one of these, with the distinctive words +"Last's Holding" printed at the top, that the thirty men had signed +themselves into the new law of the Valley. + +To Tharon these sheets had always been magic, invested with grave +dignity. + +Anything done upon them was of import, irrevocable. + +Thus had Jim Last inscribed the semi-yearly letters that went down the +Wall with the cattle, or for supplies. + +Now she spread a shining pad under the light, sat down in her father's +chair and began, carefully and minutely to reproduce the badge that +meant authority of a sort, yet was not a sheriff's star. + +The riders, clustered at her shoulder, watched the thing take shape +and form. At the end of twenty painstaking minutes Tharon straightened +and looked up in the interested faces. + +"There," she said, "an' its dull copper colour!" + +And this was the shield with its unknown heraldry which Conford took +up and studied carefully for a long time. + +"'Forest Service,'" he read aloud, "'Department of Agriculture.' Well, +so far as I can see, it ain't so terrifyin'. That last means raisin' +things, like beets an' turnips an' so on, an' as for th' forest part, +why, if he stays up in his 'fringe o' pines' I guess we ain't got no +call to kick. Don't you worry, Tharon, about this new bird." + +"I'm a darned sight more worried about that other one, th' Arizona +beauty which Courtrey's got in." + +"Forget th' gun man, Burt," said Billy, "this feller's a heap more +interestin' to me, for I've got a hunch he's a poet. Now who on this +footstool but a poet would come ridin' into Lost Valley with his badge +o' beets an' his line o' talk about 'fringes o' pines' an' 'runnin' +streams,' to quote Tharon?" + +"Even poets are human, you young limb," drawled Curly in his soft +voice, "an' I'm sorry for him if he starts your 'interest,' so to +speak. He'll need all his poetic vision t' survive." + +"I hope, Billy," said Tharon severely, and with lofty inconsistency, +"that you'll remember your manners an' not start anything. Last's is +in for trouble enough without any side issues." + +"True," said the boy instantly, "I'll promise to leave th' poet +alone." + +Then the talk fell about the new well that had taken the place of the +old Crystal and which was proving a huge success. + +"Can't draw her dry," said Bent Smith, "pulled all of three hours with +Nick Bob an' Blue Pine yesterday an' never even riled her. + +"She's good as th' Gold Pool or th' Silver Hollow now." + +"You're some range man t' make any such a comparison," said Curly with +conviction, "there ain't no artificial water-well extent that can hold +a candle t' th' real livin' springs of a cattle country, when they're +such bubblin', shinin' beauties as th' Springs of Last's." + +"You're right, Curly," said Tharon quietly from under the light, +"there's nothin' like them. They must be th' blessin's of God, an' no +mistake. They're th' stars at night, an' th' winds an' th' sunshine. +They're th' lovers of th' horses, th' treasure of th' masters. I love +my springs." + +"So do th' herds," put in Jack Masters. "They'll come fast at night +now because they can smell th' water far off, an' it's gettin' pretty +dry on th' range." + +"Yes," sighed Tharon, "it's summer now, an' Jim Last died in spring. A +whole season gone." + +A whole season had gone, indeed, since that tragic night. + +Last's Holding had missed its master at each turn and point. A +thousand times did Conford, the foreman, catch himself in the act of +going to the big room to find him at his desk, a big, vital force, +intent on the accounts of the ranch, a thousand times did he long for +his keen insight. The _vaqueros_ missed him and his open hand. + +The very dogs at the steps missed him, and so did El Rey, waiting in +his corral for the step that did not come, the strong hand on his +bit. + +And how much his daughter missed him only the stars and the pale +Virgin knew. + +For the next few days following the short, awkward visit of the +stranger Tharon felt a prickle of uneasiness under her skin at every +thought of it. There was something in the memory that confused and +distressed her, a feeling of failure, of a lack in her that put her in +a bad light to herself. + +She knew that, instinctively, she had been protecting her own, that +since Last's had stepped out in the light against Courtrey she must +take no chance. But should she have taken back the common courtesy of +the offered meal? Would it not have been better to let him stay and +meet Conford who would have been in at noon? + +She vexed herself a while with these questions, and then dismissed +them with her cool good sense. + +"It's done," she told herself, "an' can't be helped. An' yet, there +was somethin' about him, somethin' that made me think of Jim Last +himself--somethin' in his quiet eyes--as if they had both come from +somewhere outside Lost Valley where they grow different men. It was +a--bigness, a softness. I don't know." + +And with that last wistful thought she forgot all about the incident +and the man, for the prediction of Jameson that dusk at the head of +Rolling Cove became reality. + +Dixon, who lived north along the Wall near the Pomo settlement, lost +ten head of steers, all white and deeply earmarked, unmistakable +cattle that could not be disguised. + +Courtrey was resenting the vague something in the air that was +crystallizing into resistance about him. + +Word of the stealing ran about the Valley like a grass fire, more +boldly than usual. + +It came to Last's in eighteen hours, brought by a horseman who had +carried it to many a lonely homestead. + +Tharon received it with a thrill of joy. + +"Good enough," she said, "no use wasting time." + +And she sent out a call for the thirty men. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE WORKING OF THE LAW + + +It was a clear, bright morning in early summer. All up and down Lost +Valley the little winds wimpled the grass where the cattle grazed, and +brought the scent of flowers. In the thin, clear atmosphere points and +landmarks stood out with wonderful boldness. + +The homesteads set in the endless green like tiny gems, the stupendous +face of the Wall, stretching from north to south and sheer as a plumb +line for a thousand feet, was fretted with a myriad of tiny seams and +crevasses not ordinarily visible. + +Far up at the Valley's head against the huge uplift of the jumbled and +barren rocklands the scattered squat buildings of the Stronghold +brooded like a monster. + +Spread out on the velvet slopes below lay the herds that belonged to +it, sleek fat cattle, guarded carelessly by a few lazy and desultory +riders. Courtrey was too secure in his insolent might to take those +rigid and untiring precautions which were the only price of safety to +the lesser men of the community. Toward the south where the Valley +narrowed to the Bottle Neck and the Broken Bend went out, there +shimmered and shone like a silver ribbon hung down the cliff the thin, +long shower of Vestal's Veil fall. + +The roar of it could be heard for miles like the constant and +incessant wail of winds in time-worn canyons. + +Along the floor of the Cup Rim range, sunken and hidden from the upper +levels, there rode a compact group of horsemen. They went abreast, in +column of fours, and they were armed to the teeth, a bristling +presentation. All in all there were forty-two of them and at their +head rode Tharon on El Rey, a slim and gallant young figure. + +Her bright hair, tied with a scarlet ribbon, shone under her wide hat +like an aureole. She talked with Conford who rode beside her, and now +and then she smiled, for all the world as if she went to some young +folks' gathering, instead of to the first uncertain issue of blind mob +law against outlaws. + +But if she felt a lightness of excitement in her heart it was more +than actuated by the grim and quiet band that followed. + +They knew--and she knew, also--that what they did this day, in the +open sunlight, meant savage strife and bloodshed for some as sure as +death. + +For two hours they rode across the sunken range where the cottonwoods +and aspens made a lovely and mottled shade, to reach at last the sharp +ascent to the uplands above. When they topped the rim and started +forward, the huge herds of Courtrey lay spread before them, bright as +paint on the living green. Two thousand cattle grazed there in peace +and plenty. Here and there a rider sat his horse in idleness. At the +first sight of the solidly formed mass coming out of the Cup Rim on to +the levels, these riders straightened in their saddles and rode in +closer to their charges. + +The eyes of the newcomers went over the bright pattern of the grazing +cattle. A motley bunch they were, red, black and white, with here and +there descendants of the yellows which none but John Dement had ever +owned in Lost Valley. Dement, riding near the head of the line saw +this and muttered in his beard. + +"Thar's some o' mine," he said pointing, "th' very ones that was +stampeded. I'd know 'em in hell." + +[Illustration: SHE TALKED WITH CONFORD WHO RODE BESIDE HER AND NOW AND +THEN SHE SMILED] + +With the nearing of the line of horsemen a rider detached himself from +the right of the herd and went sailing away across the levels toward +the distant Stronghold. + +Quick as a flash Tharon Last lifted the rifle that lay ready on her +pommel and sent a shot whining toward him. + +"Just to show we mean business," she muttered to herself. + +The cowboy caught the warning and drew his running horse up to slide +ten feet on its haunches. + +He had meant to warn his boss, but a chance was one thing, certainty +another. + +"Dixon--Dement," called Tharon rising in her stirrups, "when we get to +work you pick out as near as you can, cattle that look like yours, an' +th' same amount--not a head more." + +Then they swung forward at a run and swept down along the left flank +of the herd. Here a rider raised his arm and fired point blank at the +leaders. One-two-three his six-gun counted. He was a lean youngster, +scarce more than a boy, a wild admirer of Courtrey, and he stood his +defence with a sturdy gallantry that was worthy of a better cause. + +"Damn you!" he yelled, standing in his stirrups, "what's this?" + +"Law!" pealed the high voice of Tharon as El Rey thundered down toward +him. Then Buford, riding midway of the sweeping line, fired and the +boy dropped his gun, swayed and clung to his saddle horn as his horse +bolted and tore off at a tangent to the right, away from the herd. + +"God!" cried the girl hoarsely, "I wish we didn't have to! Did you +kill him?" + +"No," called Buford sharply, "broke his arm." + +Tharon, to whom the high blue vault had seemed suddenly to swing in +strange circles, shut her teeth with a click. + +Abreast of the cattle she swerved El Rey aside, drew her guns and +waited. + +In among the grazing cattle, many of which had raised startled heads +to eye the intruders, went the men. They worked swiftly and deftly. +They knew that they were in plain sight of the Stronghold and expected +every moment to see Courtrey and a dozen riders come boiling out. +Those cowboys who had been in charge of the herd, sat where they were, +without a move. Out of the bright mass the settlers cut first the ten +head of steers, as nearly as possible all white, to take the place of +Dixon's band. Thomas and Black stood guard over them. Then they went +back and took out yellows and yellow-spotted to the number of one +hundred. It was fast work, the fastest ever done on the Lost Valley +ranges, and every nerve was strained like a singing wire. + +Under the dust cloud raised by the plunging hoofs, the whirling +horses, the workers kept as close together as possible. + +They rounded up the cut-outs, bunched them together compactly and +swinging into a half circle, drove them rapidly back toward the +oak-fringed edge of the Cup Rim. They passed close to where the slim +boy stood by his horse, trying to wind the big red kerchief from his +neck about his right arm from which the blood ran in a bright stream. +Tharon swung out of her course and shot toward him. + +"Here," she cried swiftly, "let me tie it." + +"To hell with you," said the lad bitterly, raising blazing eyes to her +face. "You've made me false t' Courtrey. I'd die first." + +"Die, then!" she flung back, "an' tell your master that th' law is +workin' in this Valley at last!" + +As the last rider of the cavalcade went down over the slanting edge of +the Cup Rim there came the sound of quick shots snapping in the +distance and the belated sight of riders streaming down from the +Stronghold hurried the descent. + +They had reached the level floor of the sunken range and spread out +upon it for better travelling before Courtrey and his men, some ten or +fifteen riders, appeared on the upper crest. + +The settlers stopped instantly at a call from Conford, drew together +behind the cattle, turned and faced them. They were too far away for +speech, out of rifle range, but the still, grim defiance of that +compact front halted the outlaw cattle king and his followers. + +For the first time in all his years of rising power in Lost Valley +Courtrey felt a challenge. For the first time he knew that a tide was +banking in full force against him. A red rage flushed up under his +dark skin, and he raised a silent fist and shook it at the blue +heavens. + +The grim watchers below knew that gesture, significant, majestic, +boded ill to them. + +But Tharon Last, muttering to herself in the hatred that possessed her +of late at sight of Courtrey, raised her own doubled fist and shook it +high toward him, an answer, an acceptance of that challenge. + +Then they calmly turned and drove the recovered cattle down along the +sloping levels at a fast trot. + +The die was struck. Lost Valley was no longer a stamping-ground for +wrong and oppression. It had gone to war. + +That night the white and yellow herd bedded at the Holding, _vaqueros_ +rode about it all night long, quietly, softly under the stars. The +settlers walked about, smoking, or sat silently in the darkened +living room. At midnight Tharon and young Paula made huge pots of +coffee which they dispensed along with crullers. + +By dawn the cattle were well on their way, still safeguarded by the +band of men, down toward the homesteads where they belonged. + +During that night of unlighted silence plans had been perfected in low +voices, a name chosen for the band itself. They would call themselves +the Vigilantes, as many another organization had called itself in the +desperate straits that made its existence imperative. + +By sundown the hundred head had been driven, hot and tired, into John +Dement's corrals, the ten white steers were bedded by Black's Spring +over toward the Wall. They had farther to go and would not reach +Dixon's until the morning. + +And with each band there was a group of determined men. + + * * * * * + +Word of this exploit ran all over the Valley in a matter of hours. To +each faction it had a deep significance. + +But speech concerning it was sparse as it had ever been anent the +doings of Courtrey. A man's tongue was a prisoner to his common sense +those days. + +To Tharon Last, busy at her tasks about the Holding, it was a vital +matter. She felt a strong surge, an uplift within her. She had begun +the task she had set herself and solemn joy pervaded her being. + +But of all those whom it affected there was none to whom it meant what +it did to Courtrey himself. In him it set loose something which burned +in him like a consuming fire. Where he had thought of Tharon Last +before with a certain intent, now he thought of her in a sort of +madness. He was a king himself, in a manner, an eagle, a prowler of +great spaces, a rule-or-ruin force. Down there on the sloping floor of +the Cup Rim had been a fit mate for him in the slim girl who had +shaken her fist back at him in strong defiance. + +He felt his blood leap hot at the thought of her. She was built of +fighting stuff. No pale willy-nilly, like some he knew who wept whole +fountains daily. No--neither was she like Lola of the Golden Cloud, +past-master of men because she had belonged to many. + +Courtrey, who had run life's gamut himself, thought of Tharon Last's +straight young purity with growing desire. + +It began to obsess him with a mania. His temper, bad at all times, +became worse. Ellen, the veriest slave through her devotion to him, +found her life at the Stronghold almost unbearable. + +She was a white woman, like a lily, with transparent flesh where the +blue veins showed. Her pale blue eyes, like the painted eyes of a +china doll, were red with constant tears under their corn-silk lashes. +The pale gold hair on her temples was often damp with the sweat that +comes with agony of soul. + +"It jes' seems I can't live another minute, Cleve," she would tell her +brother who lived at the Stronghold, "seems like I don't want to. Th' +very sunlight looks sad t' me, an' I hate th' tree-toads that are +singin' eternal down in th' runnel." + +This brother, her only relative, would stir uneasily at such times and +the fire that shot from his eyes, light, too, under the same corn-silk +lashes, was a rare thing. Nothing but this had ever set it burning. He +was a slight man, narrow-chested and thin. They had been from run-down +stock, these two, a strain that seemed indigenous to the Valley, +without other memories. Their name was Whitmore, and they had lived +all their lives in a poor cove up beyond the Valley's head where the +barren rocklands came down out of the skies. There had been, besides +themselves, only the father and mother, worn-out workers, who had +died at last, leaving the brother and sister to live as best they +might in the solitudes. + +Here Courtrey had found them, both in their teens, and he had promptly +taken them both along with their scant affairs. It was about the only +thing to his credit that he had married Ellen, hard and fast enough, +with the offices of a bona fide justice, a matter which he had +regretted often enough in the years that followed. + +It was this knowledge which set the light burning in Cleve's eyes. + +He knew how Ellen loved Courtrey. + +He knew also that Lola of the Golden Cloud had made the cattle king +step lively for over a year. He saw the daily growing impatience with +which Courtrey regarded his marriage. + +He resented with every ounce of the repressed spirit there was in him +the girl's poor standing at the Stronghold. + +Black Bart and Wylackie Bob treated her with no more consideration +than any of the Indian serving women. They swore and drank before her +with an abandon that made the young man's nails cut deep in his palms +at times, the blood mount high in his white cheeks. + +And Ellen drooped like a lily on a broken stem, brooded over her +husband's absences, and hated the name of Lola, used openly to her as +a cruel joke. + +The Stronghold was a huge place. The house was like the majority of +the habitations of the region, built of adobe and able to stand siege +against a regiment. It was shaded by cottonwoods and spruces, flanked +by corrals and barns and sheds until the place resembled a small +town. + +Cleve Whitmore rode for Courtrey but his heart was not in Courtrey's +game. He was slim and sullen, dissatisfied, slow of speech, +repressed. + +He worked early and late and thought a lot. + +Courtrey, who kept close count of the favours he did for others, +considered Cleve deep in his debt and paid him a niggardly wage. So it +was, that when the newly organized Vigilantes under Tharon Last came +out in broad day and took back their own from Courtrey's herds, there +was one at the Stronghold who laughed quietly to himself in sympathy +with the defy. + +"Good enough," he told the wide sky and the silence as he rode herd +under the beetling rocklands, "hope t' God some one gits him good an' +plenty." + +But Courtrey was hard to get. His aides and lieutenants were picked +men. He was like a king in his domain. + +But if strife and ferment seethed under the calm surface in Lost +Valley, its surges died before they reached the rolling slopes where +the forests came down to the eastern plains. Up among the pines and +oaks, the ridges and the age-worn, tumbled rocks David Kenset had +found his ideal spot, his glade where the pines stood guard and a +talking stream ran down. High on the wooded slopes he had set his +mark, begun that home of which he had told Tharon. From Corvan he had +hired three men, a teamster by the name of Drake and his two sons, and +together they had felled and dressed trees enough for a cabin, laid +them up with clay brought five miles on mule-back, roofed the +structure with shakes made on the spot with a froe, and the result was +pleasing, indeed, to this man straight from the far eastern cities. + +The cabin faced southwest, set at an angle to command the circled +glade, the dropping slopes, the distant range lands, the wooded line +of the Broken Bend, and farther off the levels and slants of the +gently undulating Valley, with the mighty Rockface of the Wall rising +like a mystery beyond. Kenset cut all trees at the west and south of +the glade, thus forming a splendid doorway into his retreat, through +which all this shone in, like those wonderful etched landscapes one +sometimes sees in tiny toys that fit the narrowed eye. + +Before the cabin was finished, Starret, who ran the regular +pack-train, brought in a string of trunks and boxes which caused much +curious comment in Corvan. These came up, after much delay, to be +dumped in the door yard of the house in the glade, and Kenset felt as +if the gateway to the outside world might close and he care very +little. + +Here was the wilderness, in all verity, here was work, that greatest +of boons, here were health and plenty and the hazard of outlawry, that +he was beginning to dimly sense under the calmly flowing currents of +Lost Valley. + +And here was Romance, as witness the slim girl who had backed out from +a group of men that first day of his coming--backed out with her guns +upon them, himself included, and mounted a silver stallion, whose like +he had not known existed. In fact, Kenset had thought he knew horses, +but he stood in open-mouthed wonder before the horses of Lost +Valley--the magnificent Ironwood bays of Courtrey's, with their +wonderful long manes and tails that shone like a lady's hair, the +Finger Marks which he had seen once or twice, and marvelled at. + +With the opening of the boxes the cabin in the glade took on a look of +home, of individuality. A big dark rug, woven of strong cord in green +and brown, came out and went down on the rough floor, leather runners +were flung on the two tables, a student lamp of nickel, a pair of old +candlesticks in hammered brass, added their touch of gleam and shine +to table and shelf-above-the-hearth, college pennants, in all the +colours of the rainbow, were hung about the walls between four fine +prints in sepia, gay cushions, much the worse for wear, landed in the +handsome chairs, and lastly, but far from being least, three long +shelves beneath the northern windows were filled to the last inch with +books. + +When all these things had been put in place Kenset stood back and +surveyed the room with a smile in his dark eyes. + +"Some spot," he said aloud, "some spot!" + +On the small table that was to do duty as a desk in the corner between +the southwest window and the fireplace he stacked neatly a mass of +literature, all marked with the same peculiar shield of the pine trees +and the big U. S. that shone always on his breast. + +To the Drakes these things were of quick interest, but they asked no +questions. + +When the last thing had been done to the cabin they set to work and +built a smaller cabin for the good brown horse which Kenset had bought +far down to the south and west in the Coast Country, for Sam Drake +told him that Lost Valley locked its doors to all the world in winter. +He would house his only friend as he housed himself. + +When the Drakes, father and sons, were gone back down to Corvan for +good, Kenset stretched himself, physically and mentally, and began his +life in the last frontier. + +He began to be out from dawn to dark riding the ridges, exploring the +wooded slopes, the boldly upsweeping breasts of the nameless +mountains, making friends with the rugged land. It was a beautiful +country, hushed and silent, save for the soft song of the pines, the +laughter of streams that ran to the Valley, cold as snow and clear as +wind. Strange flowers nodded on tall stems in glade and opening, +peeped from the flat earth by stone and moss-bed. Few birds were here, +though squirrels were plentiful. + +Sometimes he saw a horseman sitting on some slant watching him +intently. These invariably rode rapidly away on being discovered, not +troubling to return his salute of a hand waved high above him. + +"Funny tribe," he told himself, half puzzled, half irritated, "their +manners seem to be peculiarly their own. As witness the offered meal +so calmly 'taken back' by the young highway-woman of Last's +Holding." + +That had rankled. Sane as Kenset was, as cool and self-contained, he +could not repress a cold prickle of resentment at that memory. + +He had gone to the Holding in such good faith, actuated by a lively +desire to see Tharon again after that one amazing meeting at Baston's +steps, and he had been so readily received at first, so coolly turned +out at last. But he had not forgotten the look in the girl's blue +eyes, nor the disarming smile which had seemed to make it reasonable. + +She merely did not hold with law, and wanted him to have no false +impressions. This incident furnished him with more food for thought +than he was aware of in those first long days when he rode the silent +forest. + +What was Tharon Last, anyway? What did she mean by those words of hers +about his law and hers? That they were not the same sort of law--that +he and she would not agree? + +They could not be friends, she had said. + +Well, Kenset was not so sure of that. There was something about this +girl of the guns that sent a thrill tingling in his blood already, +made him recall each expression of her speaking face, each line of her +lean young figure. + +He did not go near Last's again, though his business took him far and +by in the Valley, for the big maps, hung on a rack beyond his +fireplace, covered full half the ranges thereof and stretched away +into the mysterious and illimitable forests that went up and away into +the eastern mountains. + +It was as if some fateful Power at Washington had set down a careless +finger on a map of the U.\S.\A., and said to Kenset, "Here is your +country," without knowledge or interest. Sometimes he wondered if +there was another forest in the land as utterly lost as this, as +little known. + +But with this wonder came a thrill. He had read romances of the great +West in his youth and felt a vague regret that he had not lived in the +rollicking days of '49. Now as he rode his new domain he smiled to +himself and thought that out of a modern college he had been set back +half a century. Here was the rule of might, if he was not mistaken. +Here was romance in its most vital and appealing form. Yes, he felt +himself lucky. + +So he took up his life and his duties with a vim. He rode early and +late, took notes and gathered data for his first reports, and set up +for himself in Lost Valley a spreading antagonism. + +If he rode herd on the range lands, the timber sections, there were +those who rode herd on him. Not a movement of his that was not +reported faithfully to Courtrey, not a coming or going that was not +watched from start to finish. + +And the cattle king narrowed his eyes and listened to his lieutenants +with growing disapproval. + +"Took up land, think?" he asked Wylackie Bob. "Homesteadin'?" + +Wylackie shook his head. + +"Ain't goin' accordin' to entry," he said, "no more'n th' cabin. Don't +see no signs of tillin'. He ain't fencin', nor goin' to fence, as near +as I can find out." + +"Cattle?" + +"No. Nor horses." + +"Hogs, then?" + +"No." + +"Damn it! maybe it's sheep!" and the red flush rose in the bully's +dark cheeks. + +"Don't think so. Seems like he's after somethin', but what it is I +can't make out." + +But it was not long before the Stronghold solved the mystery, for +Kenset rode boldly in one day and introduced himself. + +It was mid-afternoon, for the cabin in the glade lay a long way from +the Valley's head, and the whole big place lay silent as death in the +summer sun. + +The Indian serving women were off in the depths somewhere, the few +_vaqueros_ left at home were out about the spreading corrals, and all +the men that counted at the ranch had ridden into Corvan early in the +day. + +Only Ellen, pale as a flower, her sweet mouth drooping, sat listlessly +on the hard beaten earth at the eastern side of the squat house where +the spruce trees grew, her hands folded in her lap, a sunbonnet +covering the golden mass of her hair. + +At the sound of his horse's hoofs on the stone-flagged yard Kenset saw +her start, half rise, fling a startled look at him and then sink back, +as if even the advent of a stranger was of slight import in the heavy +current of her dull life. + +He came in close, drew up, and, with his hat in his hand, sat smiling +down at her. To Kenset it was more natural to smile than not to. + +The girl, for she was scarce more, looked up at him and he saw at +once, even under the disfiguring headgear, that here was a breaking +heart laid open for all eyes. The very droop and tremble of the lips +were proof. + +"Mrs. Courtrey?" he asked gently. + +At the words, the smile, the unusual courtesy of the removed hat, +Ellen rose from her chair, a tall, slim wisp of a woman, whose +blue-veined hands were almost transparent. + +"Yes," she said, and waited. + +That little waiting, calm, unruffled, made him think sharply of +Tharon Last who had waited also for his accounting for himself. + +"I am Kenset," he said, "of over in the foothills. Is your husband at +home?" + +"No," said Ellen, "he's gone in t' Corvan." + +There was a world of meaning in the inflection. + +"Yes? Now that's too bad. It's taken me a long time to come and I +particularly wished to see him. Do you mind if I wait?" + +"Why, no," said Ellen a bit reluctantly, "no, sir, I guess not." + +Kenset swung off the brown horse and dropped the rein. + +"Tired, Captain?" he asked whimsically, rubbing the sweaty mane, while +the animal drew a long whistling breath and in turn rubbed the sticky +brow band on its forehead on Kenset's arm. + +"Looks like he's thirsty," said Ellen presently. "There's a trough +round yonder at th' back," and she waved a long hand. + +Kenset led Captain around back where a living spring sang and gurgled +into a section of tree, deeply hollowed and covered with moss. + +When he came back to the shade the woman had brought from some near +place a second chair, and he dropped gratefully into it, weary from +his long ride. + +He laid his hat on the earth beside him and smoothed the sleek, dark +hair back from his forehead. + +Ellen sat still and watched him with a steady gaze. + +She was finding him strange. She looked at his olive drab garments, at +the trim leather leggings that encased his lower limbs, at his smooth +hands, at his face, and lastly at the dark shield on his breast. + +"Law?" she asked succinctly. + +"Well," smiled Kenset, "after a fashion." + +She moved uneasily in her chair, and the man had a sudden feeling of +pity for her. + +"Not as you mean, Mrs. Courtrey," he hastened. "I am in the United +States Forest Service, if you know what that is." + +"No," said Ellen, "I don't know." + +"It is simply a service for the conservation of the timber of this +country," he explained gently, but he saw that he was not making it +clear. + +"The saving of the trees," he went on, "the care of the forests." + +"Oh," she said, relieved. + +"We look after the ranges, protect the woods from fire, and so on." + +"Look after th' ranges? How?" + +"Regulate grazing, grant permits." + +"Permits?" + +"Yes." And seeing that at last he had caught her interest, Kenset +talked quietly for an hour and told her more than he had vouchsafed +any other in Lost Valley about his work. + +Gradually, however, he fell to talking to amuse her, for he saw the +emptiness behind the big blue eyes, the aching void which there was +nothing to fill, neither love nor hope. + +As the sun sank lower toward the west Ellen took off the atrocity of +calico and starch, and he saw with wonder the amazing beauty of her +ropes of hair. + +When he ceased talking the silence became profound, for she had +nothing to say and speech did not come easy to her anyway. He did not +know that at the windows and behind the door-jambs of the deep old +house were clustered almost a dozen dusky women and children, drawn +from all over the place and listening in utter silence. + +Unconsciously he had drifted back to his life in the outside world, +encouraged by the absorbing interest of the pale eyes that never left +his face. He told Ellen of boat races on the Hudson, of theatres on +Broadway, of college pranks and frolics, ranged over half the +continent in little story and snatch of description. + +Neither one noticed how the shadows were lengthening, nor that the +sun had dropped in majesty behind the mighty Wall. + +It took the sound of running horses, many of them coming up along the +slopes, to bring Kenset back to the present with a snap, to make the +woman reach swiftly for the bonnet and clap it on her head. + +"Mrs. Courtrey," said Kenset hurriedly, "this has been the first real +talk I have had with any of my neighbours, and I want to thank you for +it." + +"Oh," quavered the woman, "I don't know as I'd ought to a-let you +stayed! Mebby I'd oughtn't. But--but seems like you bein' so +different, an' I not seein' no one, come day in day out, w'y I--I--" + +"Sure," he returned quickly, understanding. "You did just right. I +wanted to stay." + +Then he rose to his feet and there came the thunder of the horses, the +noise of men stopping from a run, dismounting. + +Ellen rose and he followed her around the corner of the house to the +door yard. + +As they waited, Courtrey, clad in dark leather chaps, his guns +swinging, came toward them. At sight of Kenset he stopped short and an +oath rolled from his lips. The kerchief at his neck was turned +knot-back and hung like a glob of crimson blood upon his breast. + +Under his hat, set at an angle, his dark hair fluffed strangely. + +He was a splendid figure of a man, broad shouldered, slim hipped. + +Now he looked hard at the stranger and a slow grin lifted his upper +lip. + +"What's this?" he said, and there was a light suspicion of thickness +in his voice, "my wife got com-ny?" + +Kenset heard the woman catch her breath, and the feeling of pity that +had taken him at first for her intensified. + +"No, Mr. Courtrey," he said advancing, "but you have," and he held out +his hand. "I'm Kenset, from the foothills." + +Courtrey, not four feet from him, did not look at the hand. Instead +the glittering eyes under the hat-brim looked steadily into his with +an expression that only one man in a hundred could have interpreted. + +That one man, however, stood by the watering trough, his hand on the +neck of a drinking horse--Cleve Whitmore who watched Courtrey without +blinking. + +For a moment Kenset stood so, his hand extended, waiting. Then the +colour rose in his face and he drew back the hand, raised it, +scrutinized it smilingly, and put it quietly on his hip. + +Still smiling he raised his eyes again to Courtrey's face. + +"Courtrey," he said, this time without the Mr., "I've come to Lost +Valley to _stay_. I had hoped to be friends with all my neighbours. It +would have made my work easier. However, with or without, I stay." + +And he picked up his hat, set it on his head, walked over to the brown +horse, flung up the rein, mounted and rode out of the Stronghold in +utter silence. + +His face was flaming, the blood of outraged dignity and deep anger +beat in his temples like a drum. As he rode farther away he heard the +embarrassing silence broken by the hoarse shouts of laughter of half +drunken men. + +"Go to it," he said aloud, clinching his fists on his saddle horn, +"this is part of my duty. The Big Chief was right when he said, 'If +you help the Service to tame Lost Valley you've got your work cut +out.' It's a man-size job. I mustn't doubt my ability." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +EL REY AND BOLT + + +Tharon Last and all her followers held themselves in readiness for +anything in the days that followed the taking of the herds from +Courtrey's range. + +They locked their doors at night, stood double guard at corral and +stable. Mothers scattered throughout Lost Valley gathered in their +little ones and watched the slopes and levels when their men were +out. + +But a strange quietness seemed to settle down upon them. That for +which they waited did not materialize. Courtrey and his gun men rode +into Corvan and up and down the Valley on mysterious missions which +were as unsettling as open depredations, but nothing happened. In +fact, Courtrey, burning with the new desire that was beginning to +obsess him, was working out a new design. + +He began to draw away from Lola. His triweekly visits to the Golden +Cloud dropped off a bit. He took to drifting about from saloon to +saloon, to being less pronounced in his frequenting of one or two +places. + +His cold eyes, however, set in their narrow slits beneath the heavy +brows, picked out every settler that he met and promised vague things +for the future. He knew to a man who had ridden up from Last's that +day, and he meant that not one should escape full payment--some time. +Now he thought of the girl who had defied him and he waited with +leaping pulse. The memory of that kiss, taken by violence at her +western door, was with him night and day. She stood for right and the +dignity of order. He meant, for a time, to play her hand. + +Therefore the settlers waited, and held their breath while they did +so. + +And Courtrey took to riding much more alone, to watching the slopes +and stretches with a hand at his hat-brim, shading his keen eyes. He +looked far and wide in the golden summer land for the sight of a +silver horse cutting down the wind with a slim girl in saddle. + +But Tharon was busy at the Holding and El Rey stamped and whistled in +his paddock. The mistress knew that she had set stern tides flowing in +the Valley, that sooner or later they were due to sweep away the peace +and quiet that pervaded the cottonwoods and the singing springs. She +knew that Courtrey waited, but she made the most of that waiting. + +Conford and Billy and the rest of the riders made strong bolts for all +the doors of the house, reinforced the fences that held the herds at +night, put trick locks on all the gates. + +But the time came when the close retreat became irksome to the girl, +and she went from room to room in an uneasiness that was foreign to +her calm and happy nature. She read over and over the two or three old +books that had been at the Holding since she could remember, made new +covers for the tables in the living room, kept the hands of the Virgin +full of fresh offerings. But these things staled. + +She began to long for the distances, the open spaces, the feel of the +swooping stallion under her sailing down the wind. Courtrey or no +Courtrey, she could not fight it down. So, on a golden day when all +the boys were out with the herds and only the Indian _vaqueros_ left +in charge by Conford were at the stables, she flung the big saddle +with its silver studs and its sombre stain on El Rey, mounted and went +out and away like the wind itself. Not since the day of the raid on +Courtrey's stolen herds had she been on El Rey's back and the first +long leap and drop of the great horse beneath her set the lights to +sparkling in her eyes, the blood to burning in her golden cheeks. She +lay low on his neck and let him run, and her heart leaped up with +lightness as it ever did when she rode in these thundering bursts. + +[Illustration: IN FACT COURTREY, BURNING WITH THE NEW DESIRE THAT WAS +BEGINNING TO OBSESS HIM, WAS WORKING OUT A NEW DESIGN] + +There was no other horse in Lost Valley like the great king! Neither +Redbuck nor Golden nor Drumfire! Neither Sweetheart nor Westwind! No, +nor any Ironwood Bay that came down from Courtrey's Stronghold, Bolt +and Arrow not excepted. + +Tharon laughed and stroked the king's neck, thewed like steel beneath +her hands. She had no fear of Courtrey and his hired killers. Sooner +or later the issue would come, of course. Then she would kill the man +as she had promised Jim Last, without a thought. + +Nay, she thought of Ellen, fragile white flower, of whom she had +heard. + +A softening came about her young mouth at thought of her, a shadow +flickered in her blue eyes for a moment. Then it was gone and she +laughed, a whooping gale of joy, there alone in the green stretches +between the earth and sky, with the note of El Rey's speed steadily +rising in her ears. + +It beat in her very heart, that singing note. She loved the king as +she loved nothing else on earth, save only the memory of her father. + +She went south toward the Black Coulee and she thanked her stars that +her riders were grazing the herds north toward the Cup Rim. Here there +was none to say her nay, to urge her with loving solicitude to go +back. + +The miles sped backward and she scarce noted their travel. She drew +the king down a bit, slowed him from the swooping run, set him into +the wonderful rock-and-away of the singlefoot and retied the ribbon on +her hair. She wore no hat this day and the tawny cloud of her hair +fluffed back from her forehead, straining at its bands, its loose ends +standing up like fairy stuff all over her head. So, with her two arms +held high above her and the reins in her teeth, she rode down by the +mouth of Black Coulee--and up from the depths of the rugged wash that +split the plain for seven miles there came across her path a man on a +great bay horse. + +Courtrey on Bolt! She knew the beautiful animal even so far away. It +did not need the challenging toss of El Rey's head, the piercing +scream that rang from his open mouth across the silence, nor the +sudden lunge and strain against the bit. + +That was Bolt, the mighty, and no mistake. None but Arrow carried his +splendid head so regally, _none_ other bore so huge a cloud of mane on +his arching neck, so long a tail that spread like a fan between his +knees and almost swept the ground. + +So, Courtrey came out of the Coulee to meet her! He would, maybe, +force the issue. But Tharon was not ready for that. What was plain +killing? No, she wanted more than that. She wanted to see him scourged +and beaten, humiliated and robbed as he had robbed Lost Valley. + +So she turned El Rey, though it took the whole strength of her young +arms, and headed him back the way they had come. With the first turn +and straightening leap her heart thumped hard against her ribs. + +There, between her and the Holding, far distant, there were two +riders--and they rode bay horses, both! + +She made no doubt that they were Wylackie Bob and Black Bart, on Arrow +and Slingshot. + +A sudden mist of fear came across her eyes. A tightening caught her +throat. She looked around the illimitable spaces that stretched away +on all sides. There was nothing in all the spreading plains but the +three riders, sprung from nowhere, it seemed, and herself. + +Courtrey came rapidly up toward her, swinging a bit to the west. The +others, set somewhat apart to right and left, bore down upon her. It +looked very much as if they meant to ride her down to the Black +Coulee. + +Once in its sheltering deep wash she would be helpless, cut off from +escape. The Black Coulee went back into the eastern hills, lost itself +up in the rugged and torturous clefts and chasms that cut the unknown +ramparts, dark with forest and mysterious. + +No! Not the Black Coulee and Courtrey to take her prisoner! + +She looked this way and that. Then she saw that toward her right she +had some margin. There was space there to swing away from the man in +front who came like the wind itself toward her. She caught the seeming +of great speed and her heart leaped again. + +She recalled the day she had asked Jack Masters if Bolt could run like +El Rey. + +"How do I know?" he had answered. "I know it was speed, an' that is +all." True enough. It was Bolt, coming like his namesake, down along +the sloping stretches. + +But a great wave of exultation swept over her. She rose in her +stirrups, shook an insulting hand above her, dropped on El Rey's neck, +swerved him east and swept away toward the lifting skirts of the +wooded hills. She heard a yell behind her, glanced back and saw that +the three Ironwoods were sweeping behind her, closing in together. It +was to be a race at last! + +At last the whispered comparisons that had stirred under the speech of +the Valley concerning the Ironwoods and the Finger Marks was to have +justification. For the first and only time, in her knowledge, they +were to run. + +"All right!" cried Tharon aloud. "Come on, you bastards! It's the king +you come against an' Jim Last's blood! You'll never put a hand on +either." + +She struck her heels into El Rey's flanks, leaned over her pommel, +wished she was on the king's bare back, reached her hands far out +along the reins and began to call in his ear. + +"Yeeoo! Yeeoo! Yeeoo!" she cried, a high, exciting note that keened in +the singing wind. And El Rey, ever keen to run for no reason, finding +himself called upon, stretched out his great body, dropped low to +earth and began to run. The wind cut by Tharon's face like a knife in +the first few leaps. + +It shut her eyes in a dozen. She rode and laughed with a half sob in +her throat. The thunder of the king's iron-shod hoofs was in her ears +like the roar of the spring freshets when the empty canyons poured +their temporary torrents down the Rockface into the Valley. + +She knew he was running as she had never ridden before. She had never +called upon him before. It was like being adrift upon the wind. She +heard the note of his speed rising in her ears. It was as it had ever +been, save that it was a higher note, thinner, sharper. There was +scarce a sense of touch beneath her, a lack of jar, of vibration, so +evenly and smoothly did the shining hoofs take the grassy plain. + +Tears were in her eyes. Laughter was on her lips. This was speed +indeed! She had a sick longing that Jim Last might see his two loved +ones go! + +Then she gathered herself to turn her head across her leaning shoulder +and look back. + +As her eyes swept into focus behind, the laughter slipped off her lips +as if wiped by an invisible hand. + +There, the same distance away as when they started, rode Courtrey! + +No farther away! + +Bolt, shining in the sun, was keeping pace with El Rey! + +Farther back--a little farther back--was Arrow, running magnificently, +too. + +A greater distance behind the two came Slingshot. + +Tharon was frightened. Not for herself. Not for the intent of the men +who came after her. Not for gun-fire, nor for capture. + +She was afraid for the king! Afraid that Bolt could hold that +wonderful pace! Then a surging rage rose and sickened her. + +She leaned down again and called once more into the stallion's ear and +once more the note rose a notch. She felt that great pulsing seeming +of reserve. Always when she called there was the answer. The plain +swam beneath her like a blur. The thunder of the king's hoofs was a +single note also. + +Then Tharon raised her eyes and saw that she had left the open land +behind. The mountains were rising swiftly before, she was sweeping up +their skirts. Trees flew by. She heard the singing of waters. The +forests seemed to come down out of the skies to meet her, dark, +forbidding. + +She felt a sense of disaster, of helplessness. Where was she going, +she and El Rey, with her enemies behind and coming fast? What was to +be the end of the race? And then, all suddenly, the woods seemed to +fall away on either side, a gateway to open up before her. A lovely +open glade spread into the heart of the forest and the great king +thundered in between the guarding pines. Like a silver flame he shot +up the sloping floor, slowed, changed and came to stop before a cabin +that sat securely at the glade's head. + +With the crashing pound of El Rey's ploughing hoofs upon the very +stones at the step, a man came quickly from the interior of the cabin +and stepped out, his hand lifted. + +Tharon Last, her hair beating on her shoulders, her face pale as +ashes, her breast heaving, looked back toward the opening in the +trees, and saw Courtrey swing in a wide arc and circle past to +disappear toward the north. + +After him swept his two lieutenants, to fade swiftly from sight behind +the shielding forest. + +A grim expression spread over the face of the man at the step as he, +too, beheld the end of the vital play. + +Then he looked up at the girl on the silver stallion and his dark eyes +were alight. + +"What's this?" he asked abruptly. + +Then Tharon seemed to become conscious of him for the first time. + +She looked down at him and the black pupils were spread across the +azure of her eyes, making them strangely exciting in their straight +glance. + +"This," she said, panting, "is some of the law of Lost Valley. +Courtrey's law. That is the man I'm goin' to kill some day." + +Kenset felt the blood flow back upon his heart, an icy flood. The +words were simple, sincere, unconscious of dramatic effect. They were +as final as death itself, and he dropped his eyes unconsciously to the +two guns at her hips. He wondered why she had ridden without a shot +this time. + +He found his lips suddenly dry and moistened them before he spoke. + +"Why?" he asked, and his voice sounded strange to him. + +"Because," said Tharon simply, "because he kissed me--once--an' shot +my daddy--in th' back, th' hound!" + +"God!" said Kenset + +For a moment there was silence while a bird called sharply from a pine +top and the voice of the little stream became subtly audible. + +It seemed to the man that all his values of life had suddenly become +shifted, changed. The commonplace had become the unreal, the unlikely +the familiar. + +Guns and threats and racing horses with a woman for prize became on +the moment natural events in this hidden setting. + +And what a woman she was! He looked up in her face again and saw there +sweetness and strength, and grim purpose beyond his conception. He +knew that her words were downright, and that they meant no more to her +than duty to be done, a conscience cleared of debt. He glanced at the +hand lying so quietly on the pommel and thought of it as stained with +blood. At the fancy he frowned and mentally shook himself. + +Then, with an impulse wholly beyond his command, he reached up and +laid his own hand over that one on the pommel. + +"Miss Last," he said gravely, "I have no words to express what I feel +this moment about Lost Valley and its people. Will you get down and +let me show you my house, here in my glade?" + +Tharon sat quietly for a moment and looked down at him. She did not +remove her hand from under his, neither did she seem to be conscious +of it. + +"Why should I?" she asked presently, "you don't owe me anything. I +sent you away from my house. I wouldn't have come here if I'd known +where I was goin'. It was a chance." + +"Granted. And yet I want you to come across my threshold, to sit in my +big chair. Will you come?" + +Never in her life had the girl heard so low a voice. It was soft and +gentle, yet full of a vibrant quality that belied its softness. The +man himself was unlike Lost Valley men. He wore the olive drab +trousers of the semi-military uniform, the leather leggings, a tan +leather belt and a soft woolen shirt of the same drab color. It lay +open at the throat, and the base of his strong neck was white as a +woman's. The dark eyes upturned to hers were deep and winning. The +dark beard showed through his sharply shaven cheeks where the red +blood pulsed, like dusky shadows. + +A strange man, surely. + +Tharon wondered what made him so different from other men she had +known. There was Billy who had come into Lost Valley from somewhere +"below," and Conford, and Curly. Jack Masters had been born in the +Valley. So had Bent Smith. These men were her men, like herself and +Jim Last. This man was from "below," too, yet he was unlike. + +While she studied him he met her glance with the same grave look. + +Presently, without a word, she swung herself from the saddle, dropped +El Rey's rein, and stepped around his shoulder. + +"All right," she said briefly, "but I won't stay any longer than I let +you stay." + +For the first time Kenset laughed. + +"Twenty minutes, then," he said, "I don't think you let me exceed that +limit." + +He led the way to the door, stepped back and let her enter. As she did +so she passed close to him and caught the scent of him, the clean +soft smell of shaving soap, blended with the aroma of good tobacco. + +That, too, was different. + +Inside the cabin there was a sense of comfort, of brightness. The long +pennants, like captured rainbows, tacked to the rough walls, the soft +toned prints, the gay cushions, all these lent an air of permanence, +of home, that she had never before seen in a man's cabin. She stood +and looked all around with that same half-insolent stare which had +greeted Kenset at the Holding that memorable day. + +Then she went slowly forward and sat down in the big chair by the +table. + +The man stood in her presence for a moment, thereby giving a subtle +effect of deference which was not wholly lost upon Tharon, though she +would have been at a loss to define it. + +Then, he, too, sat down on the edge of the table desk in the corner, +and with folded arms waited while she finished her scrutiny of the +interior. + +"I am proud of my home, Miss Last," he said presently. "What do you +think of it?" + +"I think," said Tharon slowly, "that it looks like there's a woman +somewhere." + +This time Kenset laughed in earnest, a ringing peal that startled El +Rey at the doorstep, and made him clink his bit-chains. + +"There is," said the man, "assuredly." + +Tharon turned her head and looked quickly over her shoulder. + +"Where?" she asked in surprise. + +"There in my big chair." + +"Oh--I meant a woman livin' here, th' woman who owns the pretties." + +And she waved a hand at the gay furnishings. + +"No," said Kenset, "these are all my own pretties. I have books, as +you see, and my maps and several more pictures to put up, not to +mention some Mexican pottery that I brought from Ciudad Juarez, and my +chiefest treasure, a tapestry from France. That last I can't decide +upon. I have two splendid spaces--over there between the northern +windows, facing the door, and yonder at the end. Perhaps you will be +good enough to help me choose." + +There was a boyish eagerness in his voice. + +"Will you? After a while, I mean, when you have rested from your +ride." + +"Rested?" + +Tharon looked at him in wonder. That ride had been like wine to her, a +stimulant, a thing that sent the blood pounding in her veins. + +Over the excitement had fallen a subtle shade, however, a hush, with +the sight of Bolt so close behind El Rey. If it had not been for that +grave thing she would have felt like a wound-up spring, intent with +energy, filled with action. She was always so when El Rey ran beneath +her. And this stranger spoke of rest! Tharon Last could ride all day +without a thought of rest. + +"Sure," she said, "I'll help you if I can. But what's this thing?" + +"A sort of picture," replied Kenset quickly, "a picture woven in +cloth. But first, if you'll be so kind, I want you to break bread with +me. You said we would not be friends. I'm not so sure of that. There +is nothing like a man's bread and salt for the refutation of logic." + +He slipped off the desk with a lithe rippling of his body, but Tharon +was first on her feet. + +"You mean stay to supper?" she asked decisively. "No, I can't do that. +I took back a meal from you. That stan's between." + +"Why, you funny girl," said Kenset, "nothing stands between. And I +don't mean supper, exactly, either. Please sit down." + +Tharon stood, considering. She turned the matter over in her mind. + +She had taken this man's house by storm. It had, indeed, given her +refuge. If it had not been for the glade in the pines, she wondered +where she would be now--driven deep into Black Coulee, she made no +doubt, a prisoner to Courtrey. + +"All right," she said abruptly, "I'll stay. But you must be quick. Th' +time is goin' fast." + +Kenset went swiftly across the cabin to that part which served as +kitchen, and took from a curtain-covered set of shelves, a shiny +nickel object on spindly legs, which he brought and placed near Tharon +on the table. + +He struck a match and presently a clean blue flame grew up beneath +it. + +He lifted the lid and filled the small pot, thereby exposed, with +water from the bucket on a bench. Then he delved in one of the big +trunks against the farther wall and brought out a little tin of cakes, +such as one could buy in any city of the world. + +All this was absorbing to the girl in the big chair, who watched with +grave eyes. And Kenset kept up a running stream of gay talk all the +time. He wanted to make her at ease, to cover the thought of the +strain between them, and how much he wanted to drive from his own mind +the knowledge that this sweet and wholesome creature was a potential +murderer, he did not know. From a can he measured chocolate. From a +pan somewhere outdoors he brought milk. Sugar he added carefully as a +woman, and presently he spread between them on the table a small +repast that was strange to this girl of the wilderness. + +He watched her with appraising eyes and saw that there was in her no +consciousness of the unusual. She might have sat at meat in the big +room of the Holding for all the flutter there was in her. + +He told her somewhat of himself, of his life in the East, but he was +careful not to ask about Lost Valley, to make mention of the +circumstances that had brought her to his door. And so an hour passed +as if it had been a bagatelle. The afternoon was waning when Tharon +rose swiftly and abruptly terminated this first visit inside his home +of any Lost Valley denizen. + +"Bring out your picture," she said decisively, "I'll help you hang it, +an' then I must go home." + +So Kenset dived once more into the mysterious recesses of the trunk +and this time brought out a thing of rare beauty and value, a large +tapestry, some four by six feet in size, a wonderful thing of soft and +deathless hues, of cunning distances, of Greek figures and leaning +trees, of sea-line so faint as to be almost lost in the misty skies. + +"Oh!" said Tharon Last with an intake of her breath, "Oh, where do +they make such things?" + +"Far on the other side of the world," said Kenset gently, pleased +with the wonder in her wide eyes, the evident and quick realization of +beauty. + +She whirled from it and glanced quickly at the two spaces on the +rugged walls. + +"There," she said, pointing to the broad expanse between the northern +windows, "hang it there." + +"Done," said Kenset, and went promptly for a hammer. + +When the huge thick mat was securely stretched in place, Tharon +helping to hold it while he pounded in the broad-topped tacks, Kenset +stepped back and wondered how he had ever for a moment considered +hanging it in any other spot. The tempered light from the door came in +upon it, bringing out each enchanted charm, each tender vista. + +"Wonderful!" he said to himself, "I never knew how lovely it was amid +conventional surroundings!" + +"Huh?" asked Tharon. + +The man laughed in spite of himself and turned his eyes to hers, to +lose his quick amusement in the earnest blue depths that seemed to +question him at every angle. + +"I mean that it looks better here in my cabin than it ever did on city +walls." + +"Why?" + +"Well--I don't know. Contrast, perhaps." + +Tharon stood a moment thinking. + +"Perhaps," she answered slowly, "yes, perhaps. I guess that's why you +seem so diff'rent to me. Jim Last used to say that was why th' Valley +was so soft-like an' lovely, contrasted by th' Rockface." + +"Do I seem different to you?" asked Kenset quickly. "How?" + +"Yes. I don't know how. You seem soft, like a woman--some women--an' +I'm afraid----" + +She stopped suddenly, abruptly halted in her naive speech, as if she +had come face to face with something she had not meant to meet. + +"Afraid?" probed the man gravely, "go on. You are afraid--of what?" + +"No," said Tharon, "I won't say it" + +"Please do. I want to know." + +"Then," answered the girl straightly, after the honest and downright +fashion of all her dealings, "I'm afraid you are--are too soft. You +don't pack a gun. I'm afraid you wouldn't use it if you did." + +There was a certain finality about the short speech, as if she had put +the last word of condemnation to his estate. + +Kenset looked down at his hands, spread them out a bit. + +"You're right," he said shortly, though his voice was still gentle. "I +don't. And I wouldn't. Not until the last extremity." + +"An' what would that be?" she asked. + +"I don't just know, Miss Last," he answered smiling and raising his +eyes once more to hers, "it would have to be--the _last_ extremity, I +know. + +"The hands of all my forbears have been clean, so far as I know. I +have a deep horror of that imaginary stain which human blood seems to +leave on the hands of the killer. Blood guilt." + +"You call it that? My daddy had his killin's, but they were all in +fair-an'-open. _I_ called him a _man_." + +There was a ringing quality in her voice, a depth and resonance that +spoke of war and heroes. The fire that all the Holding knew was +suddenly in her eyes, flashing and flaming. Kenset caught it, and a +thrill shot through him. + +"Granted," he said quickly. "But is there only _one_ type of man?" + +"For me," said Tharon, "yes." + +"I'm sorry," said he, and for the life of him he did not know why. + +"So'm I," said Tharon honestly. + +They looked at each other for a pregnant moment, while a silence fell +on the cabin and they could hear the singing water running down the +slopes. + +Then the girl stooped and rearranged the cushion in the big chair, +laid a book more neatly on top of another at the table's edge. + +"Th' time is up," she said, "I must be goin'." + +She straightened her shoulders and looked at him again. + +"I thank you for th' meal," she said, "an' some day I'll return it--in +some manner. I don't know yet just what you're here for, nor if you're +Courtrey's man or not--------" + +"Good Lord!" ejaculated Kenset, but she went on. + +"I won't shake hands with you, for whilst I ain't done no killin' yet, +I'm sworn--an' Jim Last's hands was red--they would be to such as +you--an' down to th' last drop o' blood, th' last beat o' my heart, +I'm Jim Last's girl--th' best gun man in Lost Valley, if I do say +so." + +And she swung quickly to the door. + +Kenset followed her. He longed for words, but found none. + +There was a sudden tragic seeming in the very air, a change from the +pleasant commonplace to the tense and unexpected. It was always so in +these strange meetings with the people of Lost Valley, it seemed, as +if he was never to find his way among them, the sane and quiet course +that he must travel. + +As they reached the step at the door sill El Rey stamped and whinnied +a shrill blast. In through the gateway between the pines there came a +rider on a running horse, Billy on Golden who ploughed to a stop +before them, his grey eyes troubled. + +"Hello, Billy," said Tharon. "How's this?" + +"Been lookin' for you," said the boy. "We saw Courtrey an' his +ruffians ridin' up east--watched 'em with th' glass, an' Anita said +you rode south. Thought you might have met 'em." + +"I didn't meet 'em, so to speak," she said, smiling, "though if I'd +been on anythin' but El Rey I would. They tried to drive me into Black +Coulee." + +"Hell!" said Billy softly. + +Then the Mistress of Last's remembered her manners. + +"Billy," she said, "I make you acquainted with Kenset of th' +foothills. I rode in here just in time to shake th' Stronghold +bunch." + +The two men spoke, reached to shake each other's hands, and took a +long survey that was mutual. As the two pairs of eyes met, a wall +seemed to rear itself between them, a mist, a curtain, something +intangible, but there. + +They looked across the woman's shoulder, and from that moment she was +to stand between, though what there could be in common between the man +in the U. S. service and the common rider from Last's was not +apparent. El Rey was eager for flight and by the time Tharon's foot +was in the stirrup he was up on his hind feet, fore feet beating the +air, silver mane like a flying cloud. The girl rose with him +gracefully, threw her leg across the saddle, waved a hand to Kenset in +the door, and in another moment they were gone away down the grassy +slope, out through the opening, had stretched away along the +oak-dotted plain, swung toward the north, and were out of sight. + +The forest man turned away from the doorway, stood a moment looking +over the cabin where the late light was making golden patterns on the +green and brown rug, sighed and reached for his pipe. + +Somehow all the spirit seem to have gone from the summer day. The long +twilight was setting in. + +"She wouldn't shake hands," he muttered to himself, "and what she said +was true as death. She's _sworn_--and it is a solemn oath to her. God +help the man who killed her daddy!" + +Then once more he sighed, unconsciously. + +"And Lord God help her!" he finished very gravely, "she is so +sweet--so wild and spirited and sweet." + +Tharon and Billy let the horses run. Golden was a racer himself, +though he could not hold a candle to the silver king, and the two +young creatures atop were free as the summer winds, as buoyant and +filled with joy of being. So they shot down along the levels, Tharon +holding El Rey up a bit, though it was a man-size job to do so, and +Billy's rein swinging loose on Golden's neck. They passed the last of +the scattered oaks, came out to the green stretches. The sun was +swinging like a copper ball above the Wall at the west. Down through +the canyons the light came in long red shafts that cut through the +cobalt shadows like sharp lances of fire and reached half across Lost +Valley. All the western part of the Valley lay in that blue-black +shadow. They could see Corvan set like a dull gem in the wide green +country, the scattered ranches, miles apart. + +They swung down to the west a bit, for Tharon said she wanted to go by +the Gold Pool and see how it was holding out. + +"Fine," said Billy, "she's deep as she ever was at this time of year, +an' cold as snow." + +Where one tall cottonwood stood like a sentinel in the widespread +landscape they drew rein and dismounted. Here a huge boulder cropped +from the plain and under its protecting bulk there lay as lovely a +spring as one would care to see, deep and golden as its name implied, +above its swirling sands, for the waters were in constant turmoil as +they pressed up from below. + +The girl lay flat at its edge and with her face to the crystal +surface, drank long and deeply. + +As she looked up with a smile, Billy Brent felt the heart in him +contract with a sudden ache. + +Her fresh face, its cheeks whipped pink under their tan by the winds, +its blue eyes sparkling, its wet red lips parted over the white teeth, +hurt him with a downright pain. + +"Oh, Tharon," he said with an accent that was all-revealing, "Oh, +Tharon, dear!" + +The girl scrambled to her feet and looked at him in surprise. + +"Billy," she said sharply, "what's th' matter with you? Are you +sick?" + +"Yes," said the boy with conviction, "I am. Let's go home." + +"Sick, how?" she pressed, with the born tyranny of the loving woman, +"have you got that pain in your stomach again?" + +Billy laughed in spite of himself, and the romantic ache was +shattered. + +"For the love of Pete!" he complained, "don't you ever forget that? +You know I've never et an ounce of Anita's puddin's since. No, I +think," he finished judiciously as he mounted Golden, "that I've +caught somethin', Tharon--caught somethin' from that feller of th' +red-beet badge. Leastways I've felt it ever sence I left th' +clearin'." + +And as they swung away from the spring toward the Holding, far ahead +under its cottonwoods, he let out the young horse for another +stretch. + +"Bet Golden can beat El Rey up home," he said over his shoulder. + +"Beat th' king?" cried Tharon aghast, "you're foolin', Billy, an' I +don't want to run nohow. I've run enough this day." + +So the rider held up again and together they paced slowly up through +the gathering twilight where long blue shadows were reaching out to +touch them from the western Wall and the golden shafts were turning to +crimson, were lifting as the sun sank, were travelling up and up along +the eastern mountains toward the pale skies. Soon they rode in purple +dusk while the whole upper world was bathed in crimson and lavender +light and Lost Valley lay deep in the earth's heart, a sinister spot, +secret and dark. + +"Sometimes, Billy," said Tharon softly, "I like to ride like this, in +th' big shadows--an' then I like to have some one with me that I know, +some one like you, some one who will understand when I don't talk, an' +who is always there beside me. It's a wonderful feelin'--but somehow, +it's soft, too--mebby too soft--like--like--like a woman who's just a +woman." + +The boy swallowed once, miserably. + +"Always, Tharon," he said huskily, "always--when you want me--or need +me--I'll be there, beside you. An' you don't need to even speak a word +to me. I'm like th' dogs--there whether you call or not." + +"I know," said the girl, and reaching over she caught the rider's +hand, brown beneath its vanity of studded leather cuff, and gave it a +little tender pressure. + +Billy set his teeth to keep from crushing her fingers, and together +they rode slowly up along the sounding slopes to the beautiful +security and comfort of Last's Holding. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE SHOT IN THE CANONS + + +Kenset of the foothills was very busy. Between study of his maps and +the endless riding of their claimed areas he was out from dawn till +dark. + +He found, indeed, that none but he, of late years, had ridden those +sloping forest covered skirts. Some one, sometime, must have done so, +else the maps themselves would not have been, but what marks they must +have left were either gone through the erosion of the elements or been +wantonly destroyed. + +He fancied the former had been the case, for he saw no signs of +destruction, and the very curiosity of the denizens of the Valley +precluded familiarity with forest work. + +So he laid out for himself the labour of a dozen men and went at it +with a vim that kept him at high tension. Therefore he had little time +to think of Tharon Last and the strange life in Lost Valley. Only +when he rode between given points, unintent on the land around, did he +give up to his speculations. At such times his mind invariably went +back to that first day at Baston's steps and he saw her again as he +had seen her then, tense, stooping, her elbows bent above the guns at +her hips, coming backward along the porch, feeling for the steps with +her foot. + +Always he saw the ashen whiteness of her cheeks beneath her blowing +hair. + +Always he frowned at the memory and always he felt a thrill go down +his nerves. What was she, anyway, this wild, sweet creature of the +wilderness who held herself aloof from his friendship, and said that +she was "sworn?" + +Kenset, sane, quiet, peace loving, shook himself mentally and tried +not to think of her. But day after day he came down along the edges of +the scattered woods where the cattle grazed--on the forest lands--and +looked over to where the Holding lay like a greener spot on the green +stretches. + +He thought of her, living in this feudal hold, mistress of her riders, +her cattle, and her wonderful racing horses of the Finger Marks, +sweet, fair, wholesome--with the six-guns at her slender hips! + +If only he, Kenset, could take those weapons from her clinging hands, +could wipe out of her young heart the calm intent to kill! + +It was preposterous! It was awful! + +Bred to another life, another law, another type of woman, he could not +reconcile this girl of Lost Valley with anything he knew. + +He went over in his mind again and again the serene calmness of her in +his cabin that day of the race with Courtrey, and shook his head in +puzzlement. + +But why should he trouble himself about her at all? + +He had come here in his Government's service to reclaim its forest, to +look after its interest. + +Why should he bother with the moral code of Lost Valley? + +But reason as he might, the face of Tharon Last came back to haunt +him, waking or asleep. + +He knew that it troubled him and was, in a way, ashamed. So he worked +hard at his tasks, relocated boundaries, marked them with a peculiar +blaze in convenient trees which looked something like this: + +and set up monuments with odd and undecipherable hieroglyphics upon +them. + +And with each blaze, each mark and monument and sign, he drew closer +in about him the net of suspicion and disapproval which was weaving in +Lost Valley, for there was not one but ran the gamut of close +inspection and speculation by Courtrey's men, by the settlers who came +many miles over from the western side of the Valley for the purpose, +and by Tharon's riders. + +Low mutters of disapproval growled in the Valley. + +Who was this upstart, anyway, to come setting signs and marks in the +land that had been theirs from time immemorial? What mattered the +little copper-coloured badge on his breast? What mattered it that he +was beginning to send out word of his desire to work with and for the +cattlemen of Lost Valley, the settlers, the homesteaders? + +What was this matter of "grazing permits" of which he had spoken at +the Stronghold? + +Permits? + +They had grazed their cattle where and when they chose--and +could--from their earliest memory. + +They asked no leave from Government. + +When Kenset rode into Corvan he was treated with exaggerated politeness +by those with whom he had to deal, with utter unconsciousness by all +the rest. To cattleman and settler alike he was as if he had not been. + +None spoke to him in the few broad streets, none asked him to a bar to +drink. + +Serene, quiet, soft spoken, he came and went about his business, and +sneers followed him covertly. + +It was not long after Tharon's visit to the cabin in the glade, that +Kenset, riding alone along the twilight land, passed close to the +mouth of Black Coulee one day at dusk. He rode loosely, slouching +sidewise in his saddle, for he had been to Corvan for his monthly mail +and a few supplies tied in a bag behind his saddle, and he carried his +broad hat in his hand. + +The little cool wind that blew in from the narrow gorge of the Bottle +Neck and spread out like an invisible fan, breathed on his face with a +grateful touch. The day had been hot, for the summer was opening +beautifully, and he had ridden Captain far. Therefore he jogged and +rested, his arms hanging listlessly at his sides, his thoughts two +thousand miles away. + +At the mouth of Black Coulee where the sinister split of the deep wash +came up to the level, there grew a fringe of wild poplar trees. They +were beautiful things, tall and straight and thickly covered with a +million shiny leaves that whirled and rustled softly in the wind, +showing all their soft white silver sides when the breeze came up from +the south as it did this day. There was water in Black Coulee, many +small springs, not deep enough nor steady enough to count for water in +a range country, but sufficient to keep the poplars growing on the rim +of the great wash, to stand them thick on the caving sides. Whole +benches of earth with their trees upon them slipped down these sides +from time to time, making of the Coulee a mysterious labyrinth of +thickets and shelves, of winding ways and secret places. + +Kenset had heard a few wild stories about Black Coulee. Sam Drake had +talked a bit more than most men of Lost Valley would have talked, and +he had listened idly. + +Now as he rode up along the levels and neared the dark mouth of the +cut he studied it with appraising eyes. It was sinister enough, in all +truth, a deep, dark place behind its veil of poplars, secretive, +hushed. + +The red light that dyed Lost Valley so wondrously at the hour of the +sun's sharp decline above the peaks and ridges of the Canon Country +was awash in all the great sunken cup, save at the west under the +Rockface where the shadows were already dark. + +Kenset drank in the beauty of the scene with smiling eyes. Already a +love for this hidden paradise had grown wonderfully in his heart. He +felt as if he had never lived before, as if he had never known +beauty. + +And so, dreaming a little of other scenes, smiling to himself, he +jogged along on Captain and was nearly past the frowning mouth of the +Coulee, when there came the sharp snap of a rifle in the stillness, +and Captain changed his feet, sagged and quivered, then caught himself +and leaped ahead. For one amazed moment Kenset thought the horse was +hit. Then, as he straightened in his saddle and dropped his hand to +catch up his hanging rein, he looked quickly down. Where he was +accustomed to the smooth feel of the pommel beneath his palm there was +a sharp raw edge. A splinter of wood stood up and a small flare of +leather hung to one side. + +A bullet, singing out of Black Coulee, had carried away part of the +pommel. + +Kenset shut his lips in a new line, gathered up his rein and drew the +horse down to a walk with an iron hand. + +Slowly, without a backward glance, he rode on across the darkening +levels. He was no fool. + +He knew he had had his warning. + +Very well. He would give back his acceptance of that warning. + +He had said to Courtrey that night at the Stronghold that he had come +to stay. + +No bunch of lawless bullies were going to scare him out. + +No other shot followed. He had not expected one. + +For a time after that he went about his work as usual. Nothing +happened; he had no outward sign of the distaste with which he was +regarded by all factions alike, it seemed. + +He met Courtrey face to face in Corvan one day and spoke to him +civilly, but Courtrey did not speak. Wylackie Bob did, however--a +sneering salutation that was a covert insult. Kenset touched his hat +with dignity and passed on. + +"Of all th' tenderfeet!" said Baston, watching the small by-play. "I +b'lieve you could spit on him, boys." + +"I don't," spoke up Old Pete, shuffling by on his bandy legs, +"sometimes that quiet, soft-spoken kind rises--an' then hell's to pay +in their veecinity." + +But Wylackie looked at the weazened snow-packer with his snake-like +eyes and snapped out a warning. + +"Some folks takes sides too quick, sometimes." + +But Old Pete went on about his business. He knew, as did all the +Valley, that a price was on his head with Courtrey's band for the +daring leap which had saved the life of Tharon Last that day in +spring. + +Sooner or later that price would be paid, but Old Pete was true +western stuff. He had lived his life, had had his day, and he was full +of pride at the turn of fate which had made him a hero in a way at the +end. + +All the Valley stood off and admired Jim Last's daughter. + +Pete basked in the reflected light. And Tharon herself had taken his +gnarled old hand one day in Baston's store and called him a +thoroughbred. + +Folks in Lost Valley were chary of words, conservative to the last +degree. That simple word, the handclasp, the look in the clear blue +eyes, had been his eulogy. + +It was whispered about, as was every smallest happening, and came to +the ears of Courtrey himself, who had promised those vague things for +the future on the fateful night. But Courtrey was playing a waiting +game. He was obsessed with the image of Tharon. Sooner or later he +meant to have her, to install her at the Valley's head. He had always +had what he wanted. Therefore, he expected to have this girl with the +challenging eyes, the maddening mouth, like crimson sumac. + +Ellen? + +Already he was setting in motion a thing that was to take care of +Ellen. + +The thing in hand now was to placate Tharon, the mistress of Last's, +to play the overwhelming lover. + +Courtrey knew better than to go near the Holding. Bully that he was he +yet had sense enough to know that no fear of him dwelt in the huge old +house under the cottonwoods. If Tharon herself did not shoot him, +one--or all--of her riders would. The day of the armed band riding +down to take her was, if not past, passing fast. He recalled the look +of the settlers--poor spawn that he hated--whirling their solid column +behind her to face him that day from the Cup Rim's floor. + +No. Courtrey meant to have the girl some day--to hold in his arms that +ached for her loveliness, the strong, resistant young body of her--to +sate his thief's mouth with kisses. But he would call her to him of +her own will, would taste the savage triumph of seeing her come suing +for his mercy. + +If Tharon meant to break Courtrey, he meant no less to break her. + +Outlawry--mob law--they were pitted against each other. + +And, lifting its head dimly through the smother of hatred, of wrong, +of repression and reprisal, another law was struggling toward the +light in Lost Valley--the sane, quiet law of right and equality, +typified by the smiling, dark-eyed man of the cabin in the forest +glade. + +Courtrey sent word to Tharon--an illy spelled letter, mailed at +Baston's--that he had meant nothing by that race above the Black +Coulee, except another kiss. There was Courtrey's daring in the +affronting words. + +She sent the letter back to him--riding in on El Key alone--with the +outline of a gun traced across it. + +"Th' little wildcat!" grinned the man, "she's sure spunky!" + + * * * * * + +Once again Tharon met Kenset in the days that followed. Riding by the +Silver Hollow she stopped one breathless afternoon, drank of the +snow-cold waters, shared them with El Rey, dropped the rein over the +stallion's head and flung herself full length on the earth beside the +spring. A clump of willow trees grew here, for every spring in Lost +Valley had its lone sentinels to call its presence across the +stretching miles. As the girl lay flat on her back with her hands +beneath her head, she looked up into the blue heart of the arching +skies where the fleecy white clouds sailed, and a sense of sweetness +and peace came down upon her like a garment. + +"You're sure some lovely spot, Lost Valley," she said aloud, "an' no +mistake. I know, more'n ever as th' days go by that Jim Last was only +jokin' when he told me of those other places out below, big as you, +lovely as you. It just ain't possible. Is it, El Rey, old boy?" + +And she moved a booted foot to the king's striped hoof and tapped it +smartly. + +El Rey, always aloof, always touchy, never sure of temper, jumped and +snorted. The girl laughed and crossed her feet and fell to speculating +idly about the world that lay beyond Lost Valley. Little she knew of +it. Only the brief words of her father from time to time, the +reluctant speech of Last's riders, for the master of the Holding had +laid down the law concerning this. + +His daughter was of the Valley, content. He meant her to be so always. +The man who had instilled into her young mind a discontent with her +environment, a longing for the "flesh-pots" of the world as he had +styled it once, would have had short shrift at Last's. He would have +received his time and "gone packing" swiftly. + +And Tharon was content. + +Barring the loneliness that had come with Jim Last's death, she was +well content. + +So she lay by the willows and hummed a sliding tune, a soft, sweet +thing of minors and high notes falling, like rippling waters, and +lazily watched the high white clouds sail by. + +And as she lay she became conscious of something else in the drowsing +land beside herself and her horse. She felt it first, this presence--a +thin, dim vibration that sang in the earth beneath her. It stopped the +wordless song on her lips, stilled the breath in her throat, set every +nerve in her to listening, as it were. + +Presently she sat up and felt quickly for the gun-butts in their +scabbards. Then she parted the willows and looked out over the rolling +slopes and levels. True enough. A horseman was coming in from the +west, making for the Silver Hollow, but Tharon smiled and her fingers +relaxed on the gun. This man rode straight--like a lance, she +thought--and his mount was brown, a good-enough common horse, but no +steed of Lost Valley. + +Captain lacked the fire, the ramping keenness of the Ironwoods, the +spirit and dash of the Finger Marks. For a long time the girl in the +willows watched them. Then as they came near she rose and caught El +Rey's bridle. + +He was no gentleman, this big blue-silver king. He was savage and wild +and imperious. He hated other horses with a quick hatred sometimes and +had been known to wreak this sudden rage upon them in sickening fury. + +So Tharon held him with a strong brown hand wrapped in the chain below +the Spanish spade bit in his mouth. She stood beside him, waiting, a +slim, golden creature, tawny of hair and blue of eye, and the great +horse towered above her mightily, his silver mane blowing up above his +arching neck in the little wind that came from the south. + +They made a picture that Kenset never forgot, as he swung round the +willows and faced them. + +El Rey screamed and pounded with his striped hoofs, but Tharon jerked +him down with no gentle hand. + +"Be still, you bully!" she said sharply. + +"Why, Miss Last!" cried the forest man, "I'm so glad to meet you!" + +There was the genuine delight of a boy in his voice, and Tharon caught +the note. The sweet, disarming smile parted her lips and she was all +girl at the moment, artless, innocent, unstained by the shadow of +lawlessness and crime that seemed to ever hang above her in Kenset's +thoughts. + +"Are you?" + +"I certainly am." + +He swung down, gave Captain a drink at the edge of the spring farthest +from El Rey, dropped the rein when he had finished, and swung around +to face the girl. He took off his wide hat and wiped his forehead with +a square of linen finer than anything of its kind she had ever seen. + +Then he stood for a moment looking straight into her eyes with his +smiling dark ones. It seemed to Tharon that this man was always +smiling. + +"This is your spring, isn't it?" he asked. + +"Yes. The Silver Hollow. Th' Gold Pool is farther south toward th' +Black Coulee. There was another one, fine as this, perhaps a better +one, up on th' Cup Rim Range, but Courtrey blew her up, damn him! She +was called th' Crystal." Kenset caught his breath, mentally, all but +physically, and put up a hand to cover his lips. + +This _was_ another type of woman from any he had ever met, in truth. + +The oath, rolling roundly over her full red lips, was as unconscious +as the long breath that lifted her breast at the memory of that +outrage. + +"We replaced her with a well--an' it's a corker. Mebby better than +th' old Crystal, though she was a lovely thing. As clear as--as ice +that's frozen hard without a ripple of white. You know that kind?" + +"Yes," said Kenset gravely. + +"Well," sighed Tharon, "she's gone, an' there ain't no use cryin' over +spilt milk. What you ben a-doin' sence I helped you hang th' +picture?" + +"Won't you sit down?" Kenset stepped aside. "It is uncomfortable to +stand through a visit--and I mean to have a long talk-fest with you, +if you will be so kind." + +Tharon flung herself down at the spring's edge, eased the right gun +from under her hip, leaned on her elbow and prepared to listen. + +"Fire away," she said. + +Kenset laughed. + +"For goodness' sake!" he ejaculated, "I said visit. That takes two. +What have you been doing?" + +"Well, everythin', mostly. Made a new shirt for Billy, for one thing. +An' I showed Courtrey th' picture o' this." + +She patted the blue gun that lay half in her lap, its worn scabbard +black against her brown skirt. + +Kenset sobered at once. As ever when he let his mind dwell on that +dark shadow which sat so lightly on this girl, he had no feeling for +mirth. + +A very real chill went down his spine and he looked intently into her +eyes. + +"How?" he asked, "what did you do?" + +But Tharon shook her head. + +"Nothin' you'd understand," she said quietly. + +"I can show you something you will understand," he said, and reached +for Captain's bridle. He pulled the horse around and pointed to the +saddle horn. + +"See that?" + +She looked up quickly. With the sure instinct of a dweller in a gun +man's land she knew the meaning of the splintered wood of the pommel, +the torn and ragged leather that had covered it. + +"Hell!" she said softly, "where did you get that?" + +"At the mouth of Black Coulee, at dusk a week ago." + +For a long moment Tharon studied the saddle. Then her gaze dimmed, +lengthened, went beyond into infinitude. The pupils of her eyes drew +down to tiny points of black against the brilliant blue. + +At last she turned and held out a hand, rising from her elbow. + +"I beg your pardon, Mister," she said quaintly, "fer that day at the +Holdin' an' th' meal I offered an' took, an' fer my words. I know now +that you are--that you were--straight. I don't yet know what you may +mean in Lost Valley with your talk of Government, but I do know you +ain't a Courtrey man." + +Kenset took the hand. It was firm and shapely and vibrant with the +young life there was in her. He laid his other one over it and held it +in a close clasp for a moment. + +"I mean only right," he said, "sanity and law and decency. I think I +have a big problem to handle here--aside from my work on the forest--a +problem I must solve before I can be effective in that work--and I am +more sincerely glad than I can say that my friend, the outlaw, took +that warning shot at me. It ruined a perfectly good saddle, but it has +made one point clear to you. I am no Courtrey man, and that's a solemn +fact." + +"An' I ain't ashamed to say I'm glad, too," said Tharon. + +So, with the sun shining in the cloud-flecked heavens and the little +winds blowing up from the south to ruffle the hair at the girl's +temples, these two sat by the Silver Hollow and talked of a thousand +things, after the manner of the young, for Kenset found himself +reverting to the things of youth in the light of Tharon's grave +simplicity. + +They looked into each other's eyes and found there strange depths and +lights. They were aliens, strangers, groping dimly for a common +ground, and finding little, though presently they fell once more upon +the law in Lost Valley and earnestness deepened into gravity. + +"Miss Last," said Kenset, thrilling at his daring, "why must this law +dwell in these?" and he reached a hand to tap the gun on her lap. + +"Why? That very question'd show your ignorance to any Lost Valley man. +Because it's all there is. You've seen Courtrey. You've seen Steptoe +Service. Can't you judge from them?" + +"Surely, so far as they two go. A bad man and a bad sheriff. But they +are not all the officers of this County. Where and who is your +Superior Judge?" + +"Poor ol' Ben Garland. Weaker'n skim milk. Scared to say his soul's +his own." + +There was infinite scorn in her voice. + +"No, it's Steptoe Service, or nothin'." + +Kenset thought a moment. + +"Who's the Coroner?" he asked presently. + +"Jim Banner," she answered quickly, "as straight a man as ever lived. +Brave, too. He's been shot at more'n once fer takin' exception to some +raw piece o' work in this Valley, fer pokin' his nose in, so to speak. +Jim Last used to say he was th' only _man_ at the Seat, which is +Corvan, you know, of course." + +"District Attorney?" + +"Tom Nord. Keen as a razor an' married to Courtrey's sister. Now do +you see why this is th' law?" She, too, tapped the gun. + +Kenset frowned and looked down along the green range. He thought of +the unpainted pine building in Corvan which was the Court House. A +strange personnel, truly, to invest it with authortity! + +"I see," he said briefly, "but there must be some way out. This is not +the right way, the way that must come and last." + +Tharon's lips drew into the thin line that made them like her +father's. "It's th' law that's here," she said and there was an +instant coldness in her voice, "an' it's th' law that'll last until +Courtrey or I go down." + +The man, watching, saw that thinning of the lips, the hardening of all +the young lines of her face. He knew he had blundered. Talk was cheap. +It was action that counted in Lost Valley. + +With a quick motion he reached over and caught the girl's hand and +drew it to him, covering it with both of his. + +Her eyes followed, came to rest on his face, cool, appraising, +waiting. + +She was, in all that had counted in his life, crude, untutored, +basic. + +Yet that calm look made his impulsive action seem unpardonable in the +next second. However a warm surge of feeling shot through him with the +quiet resting of that firm brown hand between his own, and he held it +tighter. Kenset had thought he was sophisticated, that little or +nothing could stir him deeply--not since Ethel Van Riper had gone to +Europe as the bride of the old Count of Easthaven. That had been four +years back. He had been pretty young then, but the young feel deeply. + +Now he held a gun woman's hand in the thin shade of a willow clump in +the heart of Lost Valley--and the blood surged in his ears, the levels +and slopes danced before his vision. + +"Miss Tharon," he said, for the first time using her given name, "I +beg your pardon. You are strong, simple, serene. You know your land +and its ways. I am an alien, an interloper--but I can't bear to think +of you as waiting for the time to kill a man--or to be killed in the +killing. It sickens me." + +Tharon snatched her hand from his and leaped to her feet. + +"Don't talk like that!" she cried passionately, "I don't like to hear +it! I thought you were a real man, maybe, but you're not! You--you're +a woman! A soft woman--I hate th' breed!" + +Her face was flushed, for what reason Kenset, stunned by her vehement +words, could not tell. She flung the rein up and followed it, leaping +to saddle like a man. + +"I tol' you we couldn't be friends!" she cried, her eyes blazing with +sudden fire, "there ain't no manner of use a-tryin'." + +Kenset, springing forward, caught El Rey's bit. The stallion reared +and struck, but he held him down. + +"There is use, Tharon," he panted. "It's vital! Since that day on +Baston's steps, when you backed out past me I have had you in my +mind--my thoughts by day and night--there is use, and I'll keep your +hands from blood--Courtrey's or any other--if it takes my life--so +help me God!" + +The girl leaned down and her blue eyes blazed in his face. + +"An' make me false to th' crosses on Jim Last's stone?" she cried. +"No--not you or anybody else--could do that trick! Let go!" + +The next moment she had whirled out from the flickering shade of the +willows and was gone around toward the north--there was only the sound +of hoofs ringing on the earth. Kenset, left alone where the Silver +Hollow bubbled softly above its snowy sands, passed a trembling hand +across his eyes and stood as in a trance. + +What did it mean? What had he promised? What vital emotion had gripped +him that his usually quiet tongue had rushed into that torrential +speech that dealt with life and death? What was Tharon Last to him? + +A figure of the old West! A romantic gun woman with her weapons on her +hips! A rider of wild horses! + +Slowly, as if he had gained an added weight of years, he reined +Captain and swung himself up. He rode east from the spring toward the +lacy and far-reaching skirts of the forest, and for the first time he +saw the rolling country with tragic eyes. + +It held deep issues--life and death and the passing or continuing of +regimes and and dynasties--but it was a wondrous country, and, come +good or bad, it had become his own. He swung around in his saddle and +looked far back across the Valley. He saw the golden light on its +uncounted acres, the shadow falling at the foot of the great Rockface, +the mighty Wall itself with the silver ribbon of the Vestal's Veil +falling straight down from the upper rim, the distant town, looking +always like a dull gem in a dark setting, and a thrill shot to his +heart. + +Yes, if he lived to do his work in the hidden Valley--if he was shot +this night on his own doorstep, it was his country. + +He who was alien in every way, was yet native. + +Something in the depths of him came down as from far distant racial +haunts and was at home. + +So he rode slowly up among the scattered oaks with his hands folded on +the mutilated pommel, and he knew that his lines were definitely +cast. + + * * * * * + +Tharon Last rode into the Holding and dismounted in unwonted silence. + +There was a frown between her brows, an unusual thing. She turned the +stallion into his corral, dragged off the big saddle to hang it on its +peg, flung the studded bridle on a post. + +The men were not in yet. Far toward the north beyond the big corrals +she could see the cattle grazing toward home. A surge of savage joy in +her possessions flooded over her. These things were her own. They were +what Jim Last had worked for all his life. + +Not one hoof or hide should Courtrey take without swift reprisal. + +Not one inch should he push her from her avowed purpose--not though +all the strangers in the world came to Lost Valley and prated of +blood-guilt. + +But for some vague reason which she could not have analyzed had she +wished, she went to the paled-in garden where the silver waters +trickled and searched among the few flowers growing there for some +blossom, sweeter, tenderer, more mild and timid than usual for the +pale hands of the Virgin in the deep south room. + +With the posy in her fingers she slipped quietly to her sanctuary and +knelt before the statue, pensive, frowning, vaguely stirred. She +whispered the prayers that Anita had taught her, but she found with a +start that the words were meaningless, that she was saying them +mechanically. + +Her mind had been at the Silver Hollow, seeing again the forest man's +dark eyes, so grave, so quiet, so deep--her right hand was conscious +as it had never been in all her life before. She heard a strange man's +condemning voice, felt the warmth of his hands pressed upon hers. + +The mistress of Last's shook herself, both mentally and physically, +and set herself to resay her prayers. + +When she came out to the life and bustle of the ranch house the cattle +were streaming into the far corrals under their dust, the riders were +shouting, young Paula sang in the kitchen, and Anita passed back and +forth about the evening meal. + + * * * * * + +There was a slim moon in the west above the Canon Country. The skies +were softly alight, high and vaulted, deep and mysterious and sweet. + +World-silence, profound as eternity, hung tangibly above Lost Valley +and the Wall, the eastern ramparts of the shelving mountains, the +rocklands at the north. There was little sound in all this sleeping +wilderness. + +Bird life was rare. The waters that fell at seasons from the open +mouths of the canyons half way up the Rockface were dried. Down in the +Valley itself there could be seen the lights of Corvan which never +went out from dusk to dawn. Far to the north a black blot might have +been visible with a fuller moon--Courtrey's herds bedded on the range, +the only stock in the Valley so privileged. + +Along the foot of the Rockface in the early evening a tiny procession +had crawled, three burros, their pack-saddles empty save for a couple +of sacks tied across each, and a weazened form that followed them--Old +Pete, the snow-packer, bound on his nightly journey to the Canon +Country for the bags of snow for the cooling of the Golden Cloud's +refreshments. + +He was a little old man, grotesque and misshapen, yet he followed +briskly after the burros, which were the fastest travelers of their +kind in the land. He rolled on his bandy legs and kept the little +animals on a constant trot with the wisp of stick he carried and the +deep, harsh cries that heralded his coming for a mile ahead and sent +the echoes reverberating between the canyon walls. A little north of +Corvan he had followed the Rockface close for a distance, then +suddenly turned back on his tracks and disappeared, burros and all. +This was the invisible entrance to the Canon Country, a narrow mouth +that opened sidewise into the very breast of the thousand-foot Wall +and led back along a thin sheet of rock that stood between the gorge +and the Valley. The floor of this cut or canyon, which was so narrow +that the laden burros had a "narrow squeak" to pass, as Pete said, +lifted sharply. It rose smoothly underfoot in the pitch darkness, for +the cut was roofed in the living rock five hundred feet above, and +climbed for a mile. It was a dead, flat place, without sound, for the +footsteps of the burros and the man fell dully on the soft and sliding +floor, and it seemed to have no acoustic properties. + +At the end of the mile this snake-like split in the solid rock came +suddenly out into a broader, more steeply pitched canyon whose walls +went straight up to the open skies above. Here there were heaps and +piles and long slides of dead stone, weathered and powdered, that had +fallen from time to time from the parent walls. This in turn led up +and on to other breaks and splits and cuts, all open, all lifting to +the upper world, and all as blind and dangerous to follow as any +deathtrap that old Dame Nature ever devised. Here, at any crosscut, +any debouching canyon, a man might turn to his undoing, might travel on +and up and never reach those beckoning heights, seen clearly from some +blind pocket he had wandered into, might never find his way back to +the original canyon among the continuous cuts that met and crossed and +passed each other among the towering points and sheets. + +But Old Pete knew where he was going. Not for nothing had he threaded +these passages for fifteen years. He knew the Canon Country for the +lower part better than any man in the Valley, if Courtrey be +excepted. + +So this night he climbed and shouted to his burros and thought no more +of the sounding splits, for here the echoes raved, than he would have +thought of the open plains below. + +He passed on and up to where a certain cut lay full, year after year, +of packed and hardened snow. For fifteen years Old Pete had visited +this cut, a deeper drop into the nether world of rock, and cut his +supplies from its surface. Every season he took what he needed, +leaving a widening circle at the edge from which he worked, where the +cut he traveled passed the mouth of the pent canyon, and every year the +snows, sifting from high above, leveled it again. There was no known +outlet for this glacier-like pack, no sliding chance, yet it was +always on a certain level--each summer seeming to lose just what it +gained in winter. It lay level at the mouth of the passing cut, was +never filled higher. + +Starting at dusk from Corvan, Pete reached his destination around two +o'clock, filled his sacks, tied them on his mules and started down, +coming out of the Rockface in time to meet the dawn that quivered on +the eastern ramparts. + +But this night Old Pete, sturdy, fearless, unarmed, was not to see the +accustomed pageant of the rising sun, the fleeing veils of shadows +shifting on the Valley floor that he had watched with silent joy for +all these years. + +This night he was well down along his backward way, shouting in the +darkness, for the slim moon had dropped down behind the lofty peaks +above, when all the echoes in the world, it seemed, let loose in the +canyons and all the weight of the universe itself came pressing hard +upon his dauntless heart with the crack of a gun. + +"Th' price!" whispered Old Pete as he fell sprawling on his face, "fer +pure flesh!" With which cryptic word he bade farewell to the sounding +passes, the tenets of manhood as he conceived them, the valour, and +the grumbling at life in general. + +The little burros, placid and faithful, went on and saw the pageant of +the dawn from the hidden gateway in the Wall, crept down the Rockface, +single file, and at their accustomed hour stood at their accustomed +place before the Golden Cloud. + +It was Wan Lee, Old Pete's _bete noir_, who found them there and ran +shouting through the crowd of belated players in the saloon's big +room, his pig-tail flying, his almond eyes popping, to upset a table +and batter on his master's door and scream that the "bullos" were +here, "allesame lone," and that there was blood all spattered on the +hind one's rump! + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +WHITE ELLEN + + +So old Pete, the snow-packer, had paid the price of gallantry. The +bullet he had averted from Tharon Last's young head that day in the +Golden Cloud but sheathed itself to wait for him. All the Valley knew +it. Not a soul beneath the Rockface but knew beyond a shadow of a +doubt who, or whose agents, had followed Pete that night to the Canon +Country. Whispers went flying about as usual, and as usual nothing +happened. + +When the news of this came to Last's Holding the mistress sat down at +the big desk in the living room, laid her tawny head on her arms and +wept. + +There was in her a new softness, a new feeling of misery--as if one +had wantonly killed a rollicking puppy before her eyes. Those tears +were Old Pete's requiem. She dried them quickly, however, and set +another notch to her score with Courtrey. + +It was then that the waiting game ceased abruptly. + +Tharon, riding on El Rey, went in to Corvan. She tied the horse at +the Court House steps and went boldly in to the sheriff's office. + +Behind her were Billy, like her shadow, and the sane and quiet +Conford. + +Steptoe Service, fat and important, was busy at his desk. His spurs +lay on a table, his wide hat beside them. The star of his office shone +on his suspender strap. + +"Step Service," said the girl straightly, "when are you goin' to look +into this here murder?" + +Service swung round and shot an ugly look at her from his small eyes. + +"Have already done so," he said, "ben out an' saw to th' buryin'!" + +Tharon gasped. + +"Buried him already? How dared you do it?" + +"Say," said Service, banging a fist on his table, "I'm th' sheriff of +Menlo County, young woman. I ordered him buried." + +"Where?" + +"What's it to you?" + +"Was Jim Banner there?" + +"Jim Banner's sick in bed--got th' cholery morbus." + +Tharon's eyes began to blaze. + +"Bah!" she snapped, "th' time's ripe! Come on, boys," and she whirled +from the Court House. + +As she ran across the street to where the Finger Marks were tied, she +came face to face with Kenset on Captain. + +Her face was red from brow to throat, her voice thick with rage. + +"You talked o' law, Mr. Kenset," she cried at the brown horse's +shoulder, her eyes upraised to his, "an' see what law there is in +Lost Valley! Step Service has buried th' snow-packer--without a +by-your-leave from nobody! Th' man--or woman--that kills Courtrey +now 'counts for three men--Harkness, Last an' Pete. I'm on my way +to th' Stronghold." + +She whirled again to run for the stallion, but the forest man leaned +down and caught her shoulder in a grip of steel. + +"Not now," he said in that compelling low voice, "not now. I want to +talk to you." + +"But I don't want to talk to you!" she flung out, "I'm goin'!" + +Over her head Conford's anxious eyes met Kenset's. + +"Hold her," they begged plainly, "we can't." + +And Kenset held her, by physical strength. + +The grey eyes of Billy were on him coldly. The boy was hot with anger +at the man. He put a hand on Kenset's arm. + +"Let go," he said, but Kenset shook him off. + +"Come out on the plain a little way with me, all of you," he said, +"this is no place to talk." + +Tharon, standing where he had stopped her, her breast heaving, her +lips apart, seemed struggling against an unknown force. She put up a +hand and tried to dislodge his fingers on her shoulder, but could +not. + +Presently she wet her lips and looked around the street, already +filled with watching folk, then up at Kenset. + +"What for?" she asked. + +"I think I can tell you something," he answered quietly. + +"All right," she said briefly, "let go an' I'll come." + +Without a word the man loosed her. She went to El Rey and mounted. + +Her riders mounted with her, Billy's face frowning and set. From the +steps of Baston's store a few cowboys watched. There were no +Stronghold men in town, for it was too early in the day. + +In silence Kenset led out of town at a brisk canter. His lips were +set, his eyes very grave. + +In the short gallop that followed while they cleared the skirts of the +town, he did some swift thinking, settled some heavy questions for +himself. + +He was about to take a decided step, to put himself on record in +something that did not concern his work in the Valley. + +He was going directly opposite to the teaching of his craft. He was +about to take sides in this thing, when he had laid down for himself +rigid lines of non-partisanship. His mind was working swiftly. + +If he flung himself and his knowledge of the outside world and the law +into this thing he sunk abruptly the thing for which he had come to +Lost Valley--the middle course, the influence for order that he had +hoped to establish that he might do his work for the Government. + +But he could not help it. At any or all costs he must stop this +blue-eyed girl from riding north to challenge Courtrey on his +doorstep. + +The blood congealed about his heart at the thought. + +Where the rolling levels came up to the confines of the town they rode +out far enough to be safe from eavesdroppers, halted and faced each +other. + +"Miss Last," said Kenset gently, "I'm a stranger to you. I have little +or no influence with you, but I beg you to listen to me. You say there +is no help for the conditions existing in Lost Valley. That outrage +follows outrage. True. I grant the thing is appalling. But there is +redress. There is a law above the sheriff, when it can be proven that +that officer has refused to do his duty. That law is invested in the +coroner. Your coroner can arrest your sheriff. He can investigate a +murder--he can issue a warrant and serve it anywhere in the State. He +can subpoena witnesses. Did you know that?" + +Tharon shook her head. + +"Nor you?" he asked Conford. + +"I knew somethin' like that--but what's th' use? Banner's a brave man, +but he's got a family. An' he's been only one against th' whole push. +What could he do when there wasn't another man in th' Valley dared to +stand behind him? You saw what happened to Pete. He struck up +Courtrey's arm when he shot at Tharon one night last spring. Th' same +thing'd happen to Banner if he tried to pull off anythin' like that." + +A light flamed up in Kenset's eyes. + +"If you, Miss Last," he said straightly, "will give me your word to do +no shooting, something like that will be pulled off here, and +shortly." + +He looked directly at Tharon, and for the first time in her life she +felt the strength of a gaze she couldn't meet--not fully. + +But Tharon shook her head. + +"I'm sworn," she said simply. + +Kenset's face lost a bit of colour. Billy, watching, turned grey +beneath his tan. He saw something which none other did, a thing that +darkened the heavens all suddenly. + +"Then," said Kenset quietly, "we'll have to do without your promise +and go ahead anyway. We'll ride back to town, demand of Service a +proper investigation by a coroner's jury, and begin at the bottom." + +Tharon moved uneasily in her saddle. + +"Why are you doin' this?" she asked. "Why are you mixin' up in our +troubles? Why don't you go back to your cabin an' your pictures an' +books an' things, an' let us work out our own affairs?" + +Kenset lifted a quick hand, dropped it again. + +"God knows!" he said. "Let's go." + +And he wheeled his horse and started for Corvan, the others falling +into line at his side. + +When Kenset, quietly impervious to the veiled hostility that met him +everywhere, faced Steptoe Service and made his request, that dignitary +felt a chill go down his spine. Like Old Pete he felt the man beneath +the surface. He met him, however, with bluster and refused all +reopening of a matter which he declared settled with the burial of the +snow-packer in the sliding canyons where he was found. + +"Very well," said Kenset shortly, "you see I have witnesses to this," +and he turned on his heel and went out. + +"Now, Miss Last," he said when they were in the wholesome summer +sunlight once more, "if you have any friends whom you think would +stand for the right, send for them." + +"Th' Vigilantes," said the girl, "we'll gather them in twenty-four +hours." + +"The Vigilantes?" + +"Th' settlers," said Conford. + +"All right. Until they are here we'll guard the mouth of this canyon +that leads into the Rockface, as I understand it. Now take me to this +man Banner." + +At a low, rambling house in the outskirts of Corvan they found Jim +Banner, sitting on the edge of his bed, undeniably sick from some +acute attack. His eyes were steady, however, and he listened in +silence while Kenset talked. + +"Mary," he said, "bring me my boots an' guns. I been layin' for this +day ever sence I been in office. I wisht Jim Last was here to witness +it." + +In two hours Kenset was on his way to the blind mouth of the pass that +led into the Canon Country, Tharon was shooting back to the Holding on +El Rey to put things on a watching basis there, while Conford and +Billy went south and west to rouse the Vigilantes. + +With Kenset rode Banner, weak and not quite steady in his saddle, but +a fighting man notwithstanding. + +All through the golden hours of that noonday while he jogged steadily +on Captain, Kenset was thinking. He had food for thought, indeed. He +carried a gun at last--he who had ridden the Valley unarmed, had meant +never to carry one. He felt a stir within him of savagery, of +excitement. + +He meant to have justice done, to put a hard hand on the law of Lost +Valley. Murders uninvestigated, cattle stolen at will, settlers' homes +burned over their heads, their hearths blown up by planted powder when +they returned from any small trip, their horses run off--these things +had seemed to him preposterous, mere shadows of facts. Now they were +down to straight points before him, tangible, solid. He got them from +the blue eyes of Tharon Last, the gun woman, and he had taken sides! +He who had meant to keep so far out of the boiling turmoil. + +He camped that night at the base of the Wall where the blind door +entered, made his bed just inside the dead black passage, and watched +while Banner, weary and still weak, slept in his blankets beside +him. + +This was new work for Kenset, strange work, this waiting for men who +called themselves the Vigilantes--for a slim golden girl who rode and +swore and pledged herself to blood! + +More than once in the quiet night that followed, Kenset wiped a hand +across his brow and found it moist with sweat. + +What did he mean? Again and again he asked himself that question. + +What did he mean by Tharon Last? What was this cold fire that burned +him when he thought of her pulling those sinister blue guns on +Courtrey? Did he fear to see her kill Courtrey--to see that shadowy +stain on her hands--or did he fear something worse, infinitely +worse--to see Courtrey, famous gun man, beat her to it! + +He shuddered and sweat in the clear cold of the starlit night and +searched his bewildered heart. He could find no answer save and except +the weary one that Tharon Last must be holden from her sworn course. + +Tharon Last who looked at him with those deep blue eyes and spoke so +coolly of this promised killing! He recalled the earnest frown between +her brows, the simple directness of her duty as she saw it and told it +to him. + +Either way--either way--she was lost to him forever--There he caught +himself and started all over again. + +What was she to him? + +What could she ever be? She with her strange soul, _her lack of +soul_! + +What did he want her to be? One moment he ached with her loveliness--the +next he shuddered at her savagery. + +He did not want her to be anything! Why not go out to the dim and +half-remembered world that he had left, the world of lights, padded +floors and marble steps, leave this impossible land with its blood and +wrongs? Nay, he could not leave Lost Valley. He was as much a part of +it as the grim Rockface itself, the Vestal's Veil eternally shimmering +in its thousand feet of beauty. Life or death, for Kenset, it must be +here. + +So he waited and listened and watched the stars wheeling in +everlasting majesty, and he found his hands falling now and again upon +the gun-butts at his sides! + +Near dawn Banner awoke, refreshed and stronger, and made him lie down +for a few hours' sleep. + +When he awoke the sun was well up along the heavens and Banner was +offering him a piece of dry bread and some jerky, spiced and smoked +and as dry and sweet as anything he had ever eaten in all his life. + +"They're comin'," said the man, "thar's five comin' from down along +th' Wall at th' south--that'll be Jameson, Hill and Thomas, an' some +others--an' I see about ten or twelve, near's I can make out, driftin' +in from up toward th' Pomo settlement. Thar's a dust cloud movin' up +from th' Bottle Neck, too. They'll be here by one o'clock at th' +furdest." + +And they were, a grim, silent group of men, determined, watchful, bent +on the second step of the program to which they had pledged themselves +that night at Last's Holding. Tharon was there, too, and with her Bent +Smith on Golden. + +It was a goodly number who left their horses in charge of Hill and +Dixon at the blind mouth and entered the long black cut. They climbed +in low spoken quiet, their voices sounding back upon them with an odd +dead effect. They went faster than Old Pete was wont to travel, for +they meant to reach the spot of the tragedy before the early shadows +should begin to sift down from the high world above. Tharon went +eagerly, her eyes dilated. + +Always she had dreamed of the Canon Country. Always she had wondered +what it was like. When she left the mouth of the black roofed cut and +came out into the narrow, rockwalled canyon with its painted faces +reaching up into the very skies, she gasped with amaze. Above her head +she could see the endless cuts and crosscuts, the standing spires and +narrow wedgelike walls that made a labyrinthian maze. + +Billy, close beside her, as always, watched her with a pensive +sadness. + +And so the Vigilantes went in and up along the lower ways. There were +those among them who had been here before, who from time to time had +accompanied the snow-packer on his nightly trips just for the +curiosity of the thing. These several men, among whom were Albright +from the Pomo settlement--a squawman--took the lead, and Albright, +keen as a hound on trail, picked up Old Pete's marks and signs at a +running walk. + +And so it was, that, while the sun was still shining on the high peaks +above and the canyons were filled with a strange pink light reflected +from the red and yellow faces of the rock, the Vigilantes came +suddenly to a halt, for Albright had stopped. + +"Here's where it happened," he said, "there's a blood-sign." And he +pointed to the Wall at a spot about breast high. A thin dark line, no +wider than a blade of grass and about as long, spraying out to nothing +at the upper end, leaned along the rock like a native marking. No +other eye had seen it. Not one in a thousand would have seen it. + +"Good," said Kenset, "you're the man for more of this." + +They crowded around and examined the telltale spray. + +Not one among them but knew it for the stain of blood. + +From that they spread out and back to search the sliding heaps of +dust-like powdery rock-slide that lay everywhere along the walls. + +It took Albright five minutes by Kenset's watch to find the disturbed +and clumsily smoothed dump which held all that was mortal of the +snow-packer. + +"Miss Last," said Kenset as the men began to dig with the spades +brought along for the purpose, "you had best step back a bit." + +But Tharon pushed nearer. + +"This is my work," she said with dignity. "I started this, I think." + +It was a pitiful job that Service and those with him had done for Old +Pete. Rolled head-first into a shallow hole--no doubt with jest and +laughter--it was his booted foot which first came to view, sticking +grotesquely up through the loose slide-stuff. + +It was brief work and grim work that followed, and soon the weazened +form, bent and stiffened into something hardly human, lay in the soft +pink light on the canyon's floor. + +Jim Banner knelt and examined it carefully and minutely, then every +man in the group did likewise. They found evidence of one simple, +staring fact--Old Pete had been shot squarely from behind, a little to +the left. + +The bullet had undoubtedly pierced the heart--a great gaping hole in +the left centre of the breast in front attesting its course. + +"Here," said Albright, coming back from a short distance down, beneath +the spray on the wall, "here's where something was taken up from th' +floor--th' blood he lost, I make no doubt." + +"Gentlemen,--Miss Last," said Kenset, "I move we all move back and +leave the ground to Albright. There is fine work here." + +With one accord the mass moved back, clearing a goodly space. + +In the immediate vicinity there was little chance of doing anything, +for Service's bunch, and themselves, had trampled over the soft floor +until all original traces of the murder were blotted out. + +Albright looked around and seemed to hesitate. + +"Me, alone?" he asked. "Gimme Dick Compos, there." + +"Done," said Kenset. + +A tall, silent half-breed stepped forward and without another word the +two began to scan the walls, the floors, the heaps of rotted rock, the +loose and tumbled boulders, not yet decomposed, that lined the cut on +both sides. + +They stood in their tracks and looked, and the concentration in their +eyes was akin to that in the eyes of a wild animal, hiding, +hard-pressed, and looking for a loophole for life. + +The Vigilantes watched them in silence. + +Presently Dick Compos stepped forward, leaned down and searched the +wall at the left. Then he went forward, bent over, scanning each inch. +He looked above and below, the height of a man's shoulders, his hips, +his knees. + +Then he crept back, stopped at a particular upstanding piece of stone, +searched it closely--stepped in behind. + +When he came out he looked over at Tharon Last standing at the head of +her people. + +"Some one went along th' Wall here," he waved a slender brown hand at +the canyon face. "Three signs--here--here--here." + +He indicated the heights he had scanned. They stepped a bit nearer and +looked. Several pairs of Valley eyes saw what Dick Compos had seen, a +sign so fine that few would have called it that--merely a brushing, a +smoothing of the fine-sandstone surface where a man's shoulders, his +hips, his knees might have pressed had he stood waiting there. + +A bit nearer the standing pinnacle of rock, they were evident again. + +With one accord they turned and looked down the canyon to where that +thin line sprayed the face. A close shot, such as would be necessary +in the darkness of the cut. Albright and Compos both stepped to the +rock and stood looking with those narrowed, concentrated eyes. + +Suddenly Albright, looking back across his shoulders, moved like a cat +and picked up something from ten feet away. + +He held it on his palm--an empty shell, such as fitted a .44 Smith and +Wesson. + +He scanned it minutely, turned it over this way and that, looked at it +fore and aft. + +"Firin' pin's nicked," he said, "an' a leetle off centre." + +For ten minutes the thing went from hand to hand. + +Then Kenset gave it to the coroner. + +"There's your clew, Mr. Banner," he said. "Now we can begin. Let us be +going back to Corvan." + +And so it was that Old Pete, the snow-packer, went back in state to +the Golden Cloud, by relays on men's shoulders down the sounding +passes, through the dead cut, by pack-horse across the levels, lashed +stiffly to the saddle, a pitiful burden. + +Tharon Last, riding close after the calm fashion of a strong man in +the face of tragedy, thought pensively of that night in spring when +this little old man had taken his life in his hands to save her own. + +It was a gift he had given her, nothing less, and she made up her mind +that Old Pete should sleep in peace under the pointing pine at Last's +Holding--and that his cross should also stand beside those other two +in the carved granite. + +Billy, watching, read her mind with the half-tragic eyes of love. + +Kenset, seemingly unconscious, but keenly alive to everything, was at +great loss to do so. + +He hoped, with a surging tenseness, that this fateful thing was +sliding over into his hands to work out, his and Banner's. He knew +full well that he and Banner both were like to be slated for an early +death, but he did not care. In Corvan, night had fallen when the +cavalcade passed through. + +Bullard of the Golden Cloud had the grace to come out and look at the +little old man who had worked for him so long and faithfully. But +that was all. They carried him home to Last's and buried him decently +at dawn. + +Then the Vigilantes again rode out. At their head was Tharon; though +both Kenset and Billy tried to dissuade her. + +At Corvan, Banner went through the town like a wind, asking for the +gun of every man he met. By noon every .44 had been examined, one +shell exploded. Not one left the nicked, uneven sign of the mysterious +hammer which had snapped its death into Old Pete's heart. + +When the sun was straight overhead and all Lost Valley was sweet with +the summer haze, the Vigilantes, close packed and silent, swung out +toward the Stronghold. + +It was blue-dusk when they drew up at the corrals beside the fortress +house. Lounging around in cat-like quiet were some thirty men, riders, +gun men, _vaqueros_. + +When Banner called for Courtrey there was a sound of boots on the +board floors, inside, a woman's pleading voice, and the cattle king +came swinging out, his hands at his waist, his two guns covering the +crowd. + +Tall, straight as a lance, his iron-grey head uncovered, he was a +striking figure of a man. His henchmen watched him sharply. At his +side clung the slim woman, Ellen, her milky face thin and tragic. He +shook her loose and faced the newcomers. + +"Well?" he snapped, "what's this?" + +"Courtrey," said Banner, "we're here in th' name o' th' law. We demand +t' see them guns o' yours." + +If the knowledge that Jim Banner was a brave man needed confirmation, +it had it in that speech. Few men in the world could have made it, and +gotten away with it. None in a different setting. Courtrey heard it, +but he paid little heed to it at the moment. His eyes went to the face +of Tharon Last and drank in its beauty hungrily. + +Presently he shifted his gaze and regarded Kenset with a cold light +that was evil. + +"Who wants 'em?" he asked drawlingly. + +"We do." + +"Hell! Want _Courtrey's_ guns! You're modest, Jim. + +"An' what do you want, Tharon?" + +In spite of the tenseness of the moment the voice that had laughed at +death and torture in Round Valley became melting soft as it addressed +the girl. + +"Law!" said Tharon, "Law--th' law I promised you on Baston's porch!" + +"Yes? An' how do you think you'll get that? If I nod my head we'll +drive this bunch o' spawn out o' here so quick it'll make your head +swim! What do you think you're doin'?" + +"I don't _think_. I _know_ now. Know what we can do--what th' law +means." + +Courtrey glanced again at Kenset. + +"Got some imported knowledge, I take it." + +"Take it or leave it! Show us them guns!" cried Tharon harshly. + +"I--don't--think--so," said Courtrey, nodding. + +Like a pair of snakes gliding forward, Wylackie Bob and the Arizona +stranger were suddenly in the foreground, hands hanging apparently +loose and careless, in reality tense as strung wires, ready to snap +with fire and lead. + +The moment was pregnant. The very air seemed charged with danger and +death. + +Then, with a strange cry, Tharon Last swung sidewise from her saddle, +for all the world as if she were breaking under the strain, leaned far +over El Rey's shoulder, and the next moment there came a shot, +snapping in the stillness. + +With an oath and a lurch Courtrey flung backward, tossed up his right +arm, and fired with his left. His ball went high in the air, wild. The +blood from that tossed right hand spurted over Wylackie Bob beside +him, the gun it had held went hurtling away along the earth. + +There was a movement, a surge, the flash of guns and one of the +settlers tumbled from his saddle, poor Thomas of the doubting heart. +Courtrey's men flashed together as one, thundered backward to the wide +doorstep, pressed together, waited. The voice of Kenset rang like a +clarion. + +"Stop!" he cried, "don't shoot!" + +And he swung off his horse to leap for that gun. + +But another was before him. + +With a scream of anguish that rang heaven-high, Ellen shot forward and +snatched it from the spot where it had fallen. + +Tall, white as a ghost in the rose-pink light that was tinged with +purple, she stood, swaying on her feet, and faced them. + +And she put the gun to her temple! + +"I ain't got nothin' t' live for," she said clearly and pitifully, +"but Courtrey's life is worth what I got to me. If you don't clear out +I'll pull th' trigger." + +She was tragic as death itself. The big blue wells of her eyes were +black with the spreading pupils. Dark circles lay beneath them. + +Her blue-veined hands were so thin the light seemed to shine through +them. + +Her long white dress clung to her slim form. From far back by the +corral fence Cleve Whitmore watched her silently, his hands clenched +hard. + +Tharon Last looked at her with wide eyes. She had forgotten all about +this woman in the passionate hatred of Courtrey and the desire to pin +his crimes upon him. Now she wet her lips and looked at Ellen long and +silently. The pale lips were quivering, the long arm shook as it held +the gun. + +"God!" whispered the girl, watching, "she loves him! Like I loved Jim +Last! Th' pain's in her heart, an' no mistake!" + +Then, as if something strong within her folded its iron arm upon +itself, she began to back El Rey. "Back out!" she called, "we ain't no +woman-killers!" + +With one accord, carefully, watching, the Vigilantes began to back, +counting the seconds, expecting each moment to witness the most +pitiful thing Lost Valley with all its crimes, had ever seen. + +Some one lifted the body of Thomas and swung it across a horse. + +Back to the corner of the house, around, they went, and finally, out +in front they turned as one man and rode away from the Stronghold--and +Jim Banner was swearing like a fury, steadily, in a high-pitched +voice. + +"Failed!" he cried between his oaths, "failed in our biggest job! +That's th' gun, all right, all right, an' that damned woman beat us to +it! Beat us to it with her fool's courage an' her sickenin' love! Oh, +t' hell with Courtrey an' all this Valley! I'm a-goin' t' move down +th' Wall, s'help me!" + +But Tharon Last forged to his side and gripped his arm in her strong +fingers. + +"Shut up, Jim Banner," she said tensely. "You've only begun. That's +th' gun, I make no doubt, an' Ellen knew it--but if we're worth +killin' we'll dig into this harder'n ever. Here's poor Thomas, makes +one more notch on my record. I'm not sayin' quit! An' you're th' +bravest man in Corvan, too!" + +At Last's Holding the Vigilantes stopped for rest and food. + +They had been in saddle the better part of forty-eight hours. + +Young Paula, Jose and Anita set up a steaming meal, and they ate like +famished men, by relays at the big table in the dining room. + +Tharon Last sat quietly at the board's head throughout the meal, +pensive, thinking of Ellen, but grimly planning for the future. + +And Billy and Kenset watched her, each with a secret pain at his +heart. + +"Lord, Lord," said Billy to himself, "she's listenin' when he speaks +like she never listened to any one before!" + +In Kenset's mind drilled over and over again the ceaseless thought "A +hand or a heart--she could hit them both with ease. It's true, +true,--she's a gun woman! Oh, Tharon, Tharon!" and he did not know he +spoke her name beneath his breath. + +But other things were crowding forward--he was leaning forward telling +that circle of grim, lean faces, that if they could not handle this +thing themselves, there were those in the big world of below who +could--that there were men of the Secret Service who could find that +gun no matter where Courtrey or Ellen hid it, that Lost Valley, no +matter what its isolation or its history, was yet in the U. S. A., and +could be tamed. + +Then the Vigilantes were gone with jangle of spur and bit-chain, and +he was the last to go, standing by Captain in the dim starlight. +Tharon stood beside him, and for some unaccountable reason the grim +purpose of their acquaintance seemed to drift away, to leave them +together, alone under the stars, a man and a maid. Kenset stood for a +long moment and looked at the faint outline of her face. She was still +in her riding clothes, her head bare with its ribbon half untied in +the nape of her slender neck. + +The tree-toads were singing off by the springhouse and the cattle in +the big corrals made the low, ceaseless night-sounds common to a +herd. + +The riders were gone, the _vaqueros_ were at their posts around the +resting stock, the low adobe house was settling into the quiet of the +night. + +Miserably Kenset looked at this slip of a girl. + +She was strange to him, unfathomable. There were depths beneath the +changing blue eyes which appalled him. How would he feel toward her +when the thing was done--when she had killed Courtrey? + +But she must not be allowed to do it. Not though it took his life. + +If she was pledged to this thing, he was no less pledged to its +prevention. + +He felt a sadness within him as he saw the soft curve of her cheek, +the outline of her tawny head. + +With an impulse which he could not govern he reached out suddenly and +took her hands in his and pressed them against his heart. The pounding +of that heart was noticeable through her hands into his. + +But he did not speak--he could not. + +But he had no need. He could have said nothing that would have +cleared the situation, would have told himself or her what was in that +pounding heart of his--for to save his life he did not know. + +And Tharon frowned in the darkness and drew her hands from under those +pressing ones. + +"Mr. Kenset," she said steadily, "you're always tryin' to make me +weak, to break me down with words an' looks an' touches. These hands +o' yours,--_damn 'em_, they _do_ make me weak! Don't put 'em on me +again!" + +And with a sudden, sharp savagery she struck his hands off his breast, +whirled away in the darkness and was gone. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +SIGNAL FIRES IN THE VALLEY + + +Kenset, two days later, gave Sam Drake a check for five hundred +dollars and a letter, unpostmarked but sealed with tape and wax. +Drake, who owned some half-breed Ironwoods, rode the best one down the +Wall. + +Kenset had cautioned him not to talk before he left--he feared Drake's +propensity for speech. But he was the only man in Lost Valley whom he +felt he could approach. + +With the courier's departure he rode back to the Holding and told +Tharon and Conford what he had done. + +"These men are the best to be had," he said, "and they will go +anywhere on earth for money." + +But Tharon frowned and struck a fist into a soft palm. + +"What you mean?" she cried, "by takin' my work out of my hands like +this? I won't have it! I won't wait!" + +"What I meant when I caught your bridle that day in the glade," +answered the man, "to stop you from bloodshed." + +Then he went back to his cabin and his interrupted work and set +himself to wait in patience for the return of Drake. + + * * * * * + +But in Lost Valley a leaven was rising. It had begun insidiously to +work with the appearance of Kenset in Tharon's band at Courtrey's +doorstep. It burst up like a mushroom with a chance remark made by +Lola of the Golden Cloud--Lola, who had seen, since that night in +spring when Tharon Last stood in the door and promised to "get" her +father's killer, that Courtrey was slipping from her. A woman like +Lola is hard to deceive. + +Much experience had taught her to feel the change of winds in the +matter of allegiance. + +She knew that surely and swiftly this man had gone down the path of +unreasoning love, that he would give anything he possessed, do +anything possible, to win for himself this slim mistress of Last's +Holding. + +Therefore she played the one card she held, hoping to rouse the bully, +and did just the thing she was trying to avert. + +"Buck," she said, her black head on his shoulder, her dark eyes +watching covertly his careless face, "the Last girl is lost to every +Valley man. Sooner or later she'll leave the country, mark my word, +with this Forest Service fellow, for she's in love with him, though +she doesn't know it yet." + +With a slow movement Courtrey loosed his arm about Lola and lifted her +from him. His eyes were narrowed as he looked into her face. + +"For God's sake!" he said, "what makes you think that?" + +"Knowledge," said Lola, "long knowledge of women and men." + +"If I thought that," said Courtrey slowly, his eyes losing sight of +her as he seemed to look beyond her. "If--I--thought that--why, hell! +If that's th' truth--why, it--it's th' lever!" + +And he rose abruptly, though he had just settled himself in Lola's +apartment for a pleasant chat, as was his habit whenever he rode in +from the Stronghold. + +"Lola," he said presently, "I might's well tell you that I'm plannin' +to have this girl for mine,--_mine_, you understand, legally, by law. +I can't have her like I've had you. She'd blow my head off th' first +time I stopped holdin' her hands." He laughed at the picture he had +conjured, then went on. + +"An' so I feel grateful to you, old girl, for that remark. It sets me +thinkin'." And he stooped and kissed her on the lips. The woman +returned the kiss, a wonderful caress, slow, soft, alluring, but the +man did not notice. + +His face was flushed, his eyes studying. + +Then he swung quickly out through the Golden, Cloud, and Lola slipped +limply down on a couch and covered her ashen cheeks with her hands. + +"Oh, Buck!" she whispered brokenly, "Oh, Buck! Buck!" + + * * * * * + +Courtrey went straight home, still, cold, thinking hard. His henchmen +left him in solitude after the first word or two. They knew him well, +and that something was brewing. + +At midnight that night he roused Wylackie Bob, Black Bart and the man +who was known as Arizona, and the four of them went out on the levels +for a secret talk. + +The next day the master of the Stronghold rode away on Bolt. As he +left, Ellen, standing in the doorway like a pale ghost, lifted her +tragic eyes to his face with the look of a faithful dog. + +"Where you goin', Buck?" she asked timidly. + +"Off," said the man shortly. + +"Ain't you goin'--goin' to kiss me?" + +He laughed cruelly. + +"Not after what I ben a-hearin', I ain't!" + +She sprang forward, catching at his knee. + +"What--what you ben a-hearin'? There ain't nothin' about me you could +a-heard, Buck, dear! Nothin' in this world! I ben true to you as your +shadow!" + +Every soul within hearing knew the words for the utter and absolute +truth, yet Courtrey looked at Wylackie Bob, at Arizona, and laughed. + +"Like hell, you have!" he said, struck the Ironwood and was gone +around the corner of the house with the sound of thunder. + +Ellen wet her lips and looked around like a wounded animal. + +Her brother Cleve, saddling up a little way apart, cast a long +studying glance at Wylackie and Arizona. He jerked the cinch so +savagely that the horse leaped and struck. + +For four days there was absolute dearth at the Stronghold. + +Courtrey did not return. Ellen timidly tried to find out from the +_vaqueros_ where he had gone, but they evaded her. + +Then, on the morning of that day, Steptoe Service, grinning and +important, came to the Stronghold and served on Ellen a summons in +suit for divorce. + +She met him at the door and invited him in, timidly and shyly, but he +stood on the stone and made known his business. + +At first she did not understand, was like a child told something too +deep for its intellect to grasp, bewildered. + +Then, when Service made it brutally plain, she slipped down along +the doorpost like a wilted lily and lay long and white on the +sand-scrubbed floor. Her women, loving her desperately, gathered her +up and shut the door in the sheriff's face. + +They sent for Cleve, and not even the presence of Black Bart in the +near corral could keep the brother from running into the darkened room +where Ellen lay, too stunned to rally. + +"Damn him!" he gritted, falling on his knees beside her, "this's +what's come of it! I ben lookin' for something of its like. Let him +go. We'll leave Lost Valley, Ellen. We'll go out an' start another +life, begin all over again. We're both too young to be floored by a +man like Courtrey. Let him go." + +But the woman turned her waxen face to the wall and shook her head. + +"There ain't no life in this world for me without Buck," she +whispered. "If he don't want me, I don't want myself." + +"You dont' want to hang to him, do you, Sis?" begged the man, "don't +want to stay at th' Stronghold after this?" + +"Rather stay here under Buck's feet like th' poorest of his dogs than +be well-off somewheres where I couldn't never see him again, never +look in his face." + +"God!" groaned Cleve, "you love him like that!" + +"Yes," said Ellen, wearily, "like that." + +"Then by th' Eternal!" swore Cleve softly, "here you'll stay if it +takes all th' law in th' United States to keep you here. I'll file +your answer tomorrow--protest to th' last word!" + +And he rode into Corvan, only to find that Courtrey and Courtrey's +influence had been there before him, that a cold sense of disaster +seemed to permeate the town and all those whom he met therein. + +He found the "Court House crowd" tight-lipped and careful. + +And Ben Garland set the day for trial at a ridiculously early date, +for all the world as if the thing had been cut and dried at some +secret conclave. + +Courtrey was playing his game with a daring hand, true to his name and +habit. + +Dusk was falling in Lost Valley. The long blue shadows had swept out +from the Rockface, covering first the homesteads under the Wall, then +the great grazing stretches, then Corvan, then the open levels again, +then the mouth of Black Coulee and lastly sweeping eastward to hush +the life at Last's Holding in that soft, sweet quiet which comes with +the day's work done. + +Out at the corrals Billy and Conford, Jack and Bent and Curly, put the +finishing touches to the routine of precaution which the Holding never +relaxed, day or night. + +Inside the dusky living room where the bright blankets glowed on the +walls and the _ollas_ hung in the deep window places, Tharon Last sat +at the little old melodeon and played her nameless tunes. She did not +look at the yellowed keys. Instead her blue eyes, deep and glowing, +wandered down along the southern slopes and she was lost in +unconscious dreams. Once again she saw the trim figure of the forest +man as she had seen him come stiffly into her range of vision that day +in Corvan. She recalled his quiet eyes, dark and speaking, the odd way +his hair went straight back from his forehead. She wondered why she +should think of him at all. + +He was against her--was a force that played directly against all her +plans of life, her precepts. Moreover, she had told him she feared he +was soft--like a woman--some women--that there was in him a lack of +the straight man-courage which was the only standard in Lost Valley. + +And yet--she waited on his word, somehow--held her hand from her sworn +duty for a while, waiting--for what? + +Ah, she knew! Deep in the soul of her she knew, vaguely and dimly to +be sure, but she knew that it was for the time when the die should be +cast--that he might prove himself for what he was. + +For some vague reason she knew she would not kill Courtrey until this +man stood by. + +She wondered what Courtrey meant by this strange quiet following the +tragic moment at the Stronghold steps when the Vigilantes had +challenged him and ridden away. + +And then, all suddenly, into her dreaming there came the sound of a +horse's hoofs on the sounding-board without--slow hoofs, uncertain. +For one swift second that sound, coming out of the dusk with its +uncertainty, sent a chill of memory down her nerves. So had come El +Rey that night in spring when he brought Jim Last home to die! + +She rose swiftly and silently and stepped to the western door. + +There, in the shadows and the softness of coming night, a horse loomed +along the green stretch, came plodding up to stop and stand before +her, a brown horse, with the stirrups of his saddle hung on the +pommel, his rein tied short up--Captain, the good, common friend of +Kenset--of the--foothills! + +Tharon felt the blood pour back upon her heart and stay there for an +awful moment. She put up a hand and touched her throat, and to save +her life she did not know why this sudden sickening fear should come +upon her. + +She had seen men killed, had known tragedy and loss and heartache, but +never before had she seen the crest of the distant Wall to dance upon +the pale skyline so. Then she whirled into the house and her young +voice pealed out a call--Billy, Conford, Bent--she drew them to her +running through the deep house--to point to the silent messenger and +question them with wide blue eyes where fear rose up like a living +thing. + +Billy at her shoulder, looked not at Captain, but at her. + +A sigh lifted his breast, but he stifled it at birth and turned with +the others back toward the corrals. Tharon, running toward the deep +room where the Virgin stood in Her everlasting beauty, unfastened her +soft white dress as she ran. Inside she flung herself on her knees +before the Holy Mother and poured out a trembling prayer. + +"Not that! Oh, Mary, not that! Let it not be _that_!" she whispered +thickly. Then she was up, into her riding clothes--was out where the +boys were hurriedly saddling the Finger Marks. Presently she was on El +Rey and shooting like a silver shaft in the summer dusk down along the +green levels toward the east. They rode in silence, Conford, Bent, +Jack, Curly, Billy and herself, and a thousand thoughts were boiling +miserably in two hearts. + +El Rey, Golden, Redbuck, Drumfire, Westwind and Sweetheart, they went +down along the sounding dark plain, a magnificent band. The whole +earth seemed to resound to the thunder of their going, and for once in +their lives her beauties could not run fast enough for the mistress of +Last's. + +They went like the wind itself, and yet they were slow to Tharon. + +Out of the open levels there swung up to meet them and to fade into +the night, the standing willows by the Silver Hollow. The sloping +stretches began to lift, dotted by the oaks and digger-pines for whose +sake Kenset had come to Lost Valley. They shot through them, up along +the sharply lifting skirts of the hills, in between the guarding pines +that formed the gateway to the little glade where the singing stream +went down and the cabin stood at the head. Tharon's throat was tight, +as if a hand pressed hard upon it. The high tops of the pines seemed +to cut the sky grotesquely. There was no light at the dim log house, +no sound in the silent glade. Off to the right they heard the low of +the little red cow which served the forest man with milk. + +They pounded to a sliding stop in the cabin's yard and Conford called +sharply into the silent darkness. + +"Kenset! Hello--Kenset!" + +Tharon held her breath and listened. There was no sound except a night +bird calling from the highest pine-tip. + +Carefully the men dismounted. + +"You stay up, Tharon, dear," the foreman said quietly, "until we look +around." + +But to save her life the girl could not. What was this trembling that +seized her limbs? Why did the stars, come out on the purple sky, shift +so strangely to her eyes? She slipped off El Rey and stood by his +shoulder waiting. Conford struck a flare and lit a candle, holding it +carefully before him, shielding it with his palm behind it to throw +the gleam away from his face, into the cabin. The pale light illumined +the whole interior, and it was empty. The keen eyes of the riders went +over every inch of space before they entered--along the walls, in the +bed, under the tables. Then they filed in and Tharon followed, gazing +around with eyes that ached behind their lids. There on the northern +wall between the windows, was the great spread of the beautiful +picture she had helped the forest man to hang. There were his books on +the table's edge. She looked twice--the last one on the pile at a +certain corner was just as she had placed it there, a trifle crooked +with the edge, but neatly in line with those beneath it. There was the +big chair in which she had waited while he made the little meal--there +was his desk in the ingle nook, his maps upon it. It was all so +familiar, so filled with his personality, that Tharon felt the very +power of his dark eyes, smiling, grave---- + +"Hello!" said Jack Masters suddenly. "Burt, what's this?" + +Conford stepped quickly around the table and held his candle down. + +Tharon pushed forward and looked over the leaning shoulders. + +There on the brown and green grass rug a rich dark stain was +drying--blood, some three days old. + +Then, indeed, did the universe sag and darken to the Mistress of +Last's. + +She put out a hand to steady herself and found it grasped in the +strong one of Billy, who stood at her shoulder like her shadow. + +"Steady!" he whispered. "Steady, Tharon." + +She drew her trembling fingers across her eyes, wet her lips which +felt dry as ashes. The same ache that had come with Jim Last's final +smile was already in her heart, but intensified a thousand times. She +felt all suddenly, as if there was nothing in Lost Valley worth while, +nothing in all the world! That drying stain at her feet seemed to shut +out the sun, moon and stars with its sinister darkness. She felt a +nausea at the pit of her stomach, a need for air in her cramped +lungs. + +Strange, she had never known that one could be so detached from all +familiar things, could seem so lost in a sea of stupid agony. Why was +it so? If this dark blot of blood had come from the veins of Billy +now, of Conford, or Jack or Curly, her own men, would she have lost +her grip like this? And then she became dully conscious that Billy had +put her in the big chair by the table and had joined the others in +their exhaustive search for any clew to the tragedy. She saw the moon +rising over the tops of the pine trees at the glade's edge, heard the +little song of the running stream. + +That was the little stream that Kenset had looked for in his ideal +spot, this was the home he had made for himself, these were the things +of the other life he had known, these soft, dark pictures, the books +on the tables, the brass things shining in the light from the lamp.... +She knew that she was cold in the summer night, that she was staring +miserably out of the open door, scarcely conscious of the scattered +voices of her men, searching, searching, hunting, in widening circles +outside.... Then they came back talking in low voices and she roused +herself desperately. Her limbs were stiff when she rose from the big +chair, her hands were icy. + +"No use, Tharon," said Conford quietly, "we can't find a damned thing. +If Courtrey's bunch killed Kenset they made a clean get-away with all +evidence. That much has th' new law done in th' Valley--killed th' +insolence of th' gun man. Let's go home." + +It was Billy, faithful and still, who helped her--for the first time +in her life!--to mount a horse. She went up on El Rey as if she +were old. Then they were riding down the smooth floor of the little +glade, leaving that darkened cabin at its head to stand in tragic +loneliness. + +She saw the tops of the guarding pines at the gateway, rode out +between them. The moon was up in majesty, and by its light Jack +Masters suddenly leaned down to look at something, pulled up, swept +down from his saddle, cowboy fashion, hanging by a foot and a hand, +and picked up something which he examined keenly. + +"Look," he said quickly, "th' beet-man's badge!" + +He held out on his palm a small dark object, the copper-coloured +shield which had shone on Kenset's breast! + +Its double-tongued fastener was twisted far awry, as if it had been +wrenched away by violence. + +Conford turned and looked back to the cabin, as if he measured the +distance. + +"There's been funny work here as sure's hell," he said profoundly. + +Then they rode on, all silent, thinking. It was near dawn when they +rode up along the sounding-board and put in at Last's. Billy reached +up tender arms and took Tharon off El Rey, and for the first time she +gave herself wearily into them as if she were done. + +As she opened the door into her own dusky room the pale Virgin, +touched by a silver shaft of the sinking moon, stood out in startling, +ethereal beauty, Her meek hands folded on Her breast. Tharon Last +stumbled forward and sank in a heap at Her feet, her arms about the +statue's knees. + +"Hail--Mary--intercede for--him--" she faltered, and then the shining +Virgin, the dim mystery of the shadowy room, faded out to leave her +for the first time in her strong life, a bit of senseless clay. + +When she again opened her eyes the little winds of day were fanning +her cheeks and old Anita was tugging at her shoulders, voluble with +fright. + +To the riders of Last's the tragedy was nothing more than any other +that they had known in Lost Valley. They went about their work as +usual. + +Only Billy was filled with a sickening anguish at the knowledge that +he was not able to offer one smallest saving straw to the girl in the +big house--for Billy knew. + +All day Tharon sat like a rock in her own room, staring with unseeing +eyes at the blank whitewashed walls. She did not yet know what ailed +her, why this killing, more than that of poor Harkness, should make +her sick to her soul's foundations. Yet it was so. Even the thought of +her sworn duty was vague before her for a time. Then it seemed to come +forward out of the mass of fleeting memories--Kenset that day at +Baston's steps shapely, trim, halted--Kenset laughing over the little +meal beside the table where the books lay--Kenset grasping her +shoulder when she whirled to mount El Rey and challenge the Stronghold +single-handed--to come forward like a calming, steadying thing and +turn the pain to purpose. + +There was no one now to hold her back, no vital hands to press hers +upon a beating heart, to make her untrue to her given word! + +Now she could go out, reckless and grim in her utter disregard of the +outcome, and kill Courtrey where he stood. The time had come. There +should be another cross in the granite beneath the pointing pine. + +As if the whirling universe settled back to its ordered place the +right proportion came back to her vision, the breath seemed to lighten +her holden lungs. + +Once again the girl arose and steadied herself, smoothed her tawny +hair, looked at her hands to find them free from the shaking that had +weakened them. + +She dressed herself and went out among her people, quiet and pale. + +The twilight had fallen and all the western part of the Valley was +blue with shadow. Only on Kenset's foothills was the rosy light +glowing, a tragic, aching light, it seemed to her. She saw all the +little world of Lost Valley with new eyes, sombre eyes, in which there +was no sense of its beauty. She wondered anxiously how soon she could +meet Courtrey, and where. And then with the suddenness of an ordered +play, the question was answered for her, for out of the dusk and the +purple shadows a Pomo rider came on a running pony and halted out a +stone's throw, calling for the "Senorita," his hands held up in token +of friendliness. + +Without a thought of treachery Tharon went out to him and took the +letter he handed her--swinging around for flight as the paper left his +hand, for the riders of Last's were known all up and down the land. +This dusky messenger took no chances he could avoid. He was well down +along the slope by the time the boys came clanking around the house. + +And Tharon, standing in the twilight like a slim white ghost, was +staring over their heads, her lips ashen, the scrawled letter +trembling in her hands. For this is what she read, straining her young +eyes in the fading light. + + "Tharon. You must know by now that I mean bisness. All this + Vigilant bisness ain't a-goin' to help things eny. If it hadn't of + ben that I love you, what you think I'd a-done to that bunch? + That's th' truth. I ben holdin' off thinkin' you'd come to your + senses an' see that Buck Courtrey ain't to be met with vilence. + Now I'm playin' my trump card--now, tonight. + + "Lola says you love this dude from below. That don't cut no ice + with me. I ain't carin' for no love from you at present. All I + want is _you_. I can make you love me once I've got you safe at + th' Stronghold. I ain't never failed with no woman yet. An' I mean + to have you, fair means or foul. + + "Rather have you fair. So here's my last word. + + "This Kenset ain't dead--yet. I went and took him. I've got him + safe as hell in the Canon Country. Ain't no man in th' Valley can + find God's Cup but me. He's guarded an' there's a lookout on th' + peak above th' Cup that can see a signal fire at th' Stronghold. + One fire out by my big corral means 'Send him out by False Ridge + with ten days' grub.' Two fires means 'Put a true bullet in his + head an' leave him there.' Now, here's the word. I've got a case + fixed up to divorce Ellen, legal. If you'll marry me soon's I'm + free, I'll build one fire out by that corral. + + "If you say yes, you build one fire out by th' cottonwoods to th' + left of the Holdin'. I'm watchin' an' will see it at once. You can + see for yourself I mean bisness, as if you'll watch too, you'll + see that one fire here. + + COURTREY." + +For a long moment the Mistress of Last's stood in profound quiet, as +if she could not move. She was held in a trance like those dreadful +night-dreams when one is locked in deadly inertia, helpless. The net +which had been weaving in Courtrey's fertile brain was finished, +flung, and closing in upon her before she knew of its existence. An +awe of his cleverness, his trickery, gripped her in a clutch of ice. +The whole fabric of her own desires and plans and purposes seemed to +crumple like the white ash in a dead fire, leaving her nothing. She +had been out-witted instead of outfought. One more evidence of the +man's baseness, his unscrupulous cunning. + +He played his trump card and it was a winner, sweeping the table--for +she knew before she finished that difficult reading that she would do +anything in all the world to stop that "true bullet" in the heart that +had pounded beneath her open palms.... Knew she would break her given +word to Jim Last--knew she would forsake the Holding--that she would +crawl to Courtrey's feet and kiss his hand, if only he would spare +Kenset of the foothills, would send him out to that vague world of +below, never to return! + +She swayed drunkenly on her feet for a time that seemed ages long. +Then life came back in her with a rush. She broke the nightmare dream +and gasped out a broken command to her faithful ones. + +"Billy!" she said thickly, "Oh, Billy! If you love me, run! Run an' +build a fire--one fire!--only _one_ fire, Billy, dear--out by th' +cottonwoods to th' left--of th' Holdin'!" + +Then she went and sat limply down on the step at the western door, +leaned her head against the deep adobe wall, and fell to weeping as if +the very heart in her would wash itself away in tears. + +And Billy, numb with anguish but true to the love he bore her, went +swiftly out and set that beacon glowing. Its red light flaring against +the blue darkness of the falling night seemed like a bodeful omen of +sorrow and disaster, of death and failure and despair. + +Tharon on the sill roused herself to watch it leap and glow, then +turned her deep eyes to where she knew the Stronghold lay. + +Presently out upon the distant black curtain of the night there flared +that other fire, signal of life to Kenset somewhere in the Canon +Country--and then her lips drew into a thin hard line and she +straightened her young form stiffly up, put a hand hard upon her +breast. + +"A little time, Courtrey!" she whispered to herself, "Jus' a little +time an' luck, an' I'll give you th' double-cross or die, damn your +soul to hell!" + +Billy, coming softly in along the adobe wall, caught the whisper, +felt rather than heard its meaning, and turned back with the step of a +cat. + + * * * * * + +An hour later, when all the Holding was quiet for the night, drifting +to early rest after the day's hard work, the Mistress of Last's, +booted, dressed in riding clothes, her fair head covered by a +sombrero, her daddy's guns at her hips, crept softly to the gate of El +Rey's own corral. She went like a thief, crouching, watching, without +a sound, and saddled the big stallion in careful softness. She led him +gently out and around toward the cottonwoods, away from the house. +When she was well away she put foot to stirrup and went up as the king +leaped for his accustomed flight. + +But Tharon pulled him down. She wanted no thunder on the sounding-board +tonight. But soft as she had been, as careful, there was one at the +Holding who followed her every act, who went for a horse, too, who +saddled Drumfire in silence and who crept down the sounding-board--Billy +the faithful. Far down along the plain toward the Black Coulee he let +the red roan out, so that the girl, keen of hearing as of sight, caught +the following beat of hoofs, stopped, listened, understood and reined El +Rey up to wait. + +And soon out of the shadows cast by the eastern ramparts, where the +moon was rising, she saw the rider coming. A quick mist of tears +suffused her eyes, a sick feeling gripped her heart. + +Here was another mixed in the sorry tangle! She had always known +vaguely that Billy was one with her, that his heart was the deep heart +of her friend. + +He was the one she always wanted near her in times of stress, it was +with him she liked to ride in the Big Shadow when the sun went down +behind the Canon Country. + +But now she did not want him. She had a keen desire to see him safely +out of this--this which was to be the end, one way or the other, of +the blood-feud between the Stronghold and Last's. + +Now as he loped up and stopped abreast of her in silence, she reached +out a hand and caught his in a close clasp. + +"I don't want you, Billy, dear," she said miserably, "not because I +don't love you, but because I ain't a-goin' to see you shot by +Courtrey's gang. This is one time, boy, when I want you to leave me +alone, to go back without me." + +The rider shook his head against the stars. + +"Couldn't do it, little girl," he said wistfully, "you know I couldn't +do it." + +"Ain't I your mistress, Billy?" asked Tharon sternly. "Ain't I your +boss?" + +"Sure are," said the boy with conviction. + +"Ain't I always been a good boss to you?" + +"Best in th' world. Good as Jim Last." + +"Then," said Tharon sharply, "it's up to you to take my orders. I +order you now--go back." + +The cowboy leaned down suddenly and kissed the hand he held. + +"I'm at your shoulder, Tharon, dear," he said with simple dignity, +"like your shadow. At your foot like the dogs that never forsake th' +herds. I couldn't go back an' leave you--not though I died for it +tonight. + +"We'll say no more about it. I don't know where you're goin', but +wherever it is, there I'm goin', too, an' on my way. You can tell me +or not, just as you please, but let's go." + +For a long time Tharon Last sat in the starlight and watched the +crests of the distant mountains fringed with the silver of the moon +that was rising behind them, and her throat ached with tears. All +these things that hurt her, these unknown, tangled things that she +knew dimly meant Life, had come to her with the advent of Kenset in +Lost Valley. She wished passionately for a fleeting moment that he had +never come, that the old swinging, rushing life of the ranges had +never known his holding influence. Then she felt again the hammering +of his heart beneath her palms, and nothing mattered in all the world +beside. + +It was a thing beyond her ken, something ordered by fate. She must go +on, blindly as running waters, regardless of all that drowned. + +But she loosed her hand from Billy's, leaned to his shoulder, put her +arm about his neck and drew his face to hers. Softly, tenderly, she +kissed him upon the lips, and she did not know that that was the +cruelest thing she had ever done in all her kindly life, did not see +the deathly pallor that overspread his face. + +"I'm goin' to th' Canon Country, Billy," she said simply, "to find th' +Cup o' God an' Kenset." + +Then she straightened in her saddle and gave El Rey the rein. + + * * * * * + +It was two of the clock by the starry heavens when these two riders +entered the blind opening in the Rockface and disappeared. El Rey, the +mighty, tossed his great head and whistled, stamped his hoofs in the +dead sift of the silencing floor. He had never before lost sight of +the sky, never felt other breath in his nostrils than the keen plain's +wind. + +Now he shook himself and halted, went on again, and again halted, to +be urged forward by Tharon's spurred heels in his flanks. Up through +the eerie pass they went without speech, for each heart was filled to +overflowing with thoughts and fears. + +To Billy there was something fateful, bodeful in the dead darkness, +the stillness. It seemed to him as if he left forever behind him the +open life of the ranges, the gay and careless days of riding after +Tharon's cattle. + +For five years he had lived at Last's, under master and mistress, +content, happy. The half-remembered world of below had never called +him. The light on the table under the swinging lamp with Tharon's face +therein, the murmur of the stream through her garden, the whisper of +the cottonwoods, these had been sufficient. He had, subconsciously, +thanked his Maker for these things, had served them with a whole +heart. They had been his all, his life. Now the cottonwoods seemed far +away, remote, the life of the deep ranch house a thing of long ago. +All these things had given way to something that sapped the sunlight +from the air, the very blueness from the vaulted skies, something that +had come with the quiet man of the pine-tree badge. So Billy sighed in +the darkness and sat easily on Drumfire, his slim left hand fidgeting +with the swinging rein. + +And Tharon was lost, too, in a maze of thoughts. She sat straight +as a lance, tense, alive, keen, staring into the narrow bore of the high +ceiled cut, thinking feverishly. Was Kenset really alive? Had +Courtrey been square with her? Or was he even now lying stiff and +stark somewhere in the high cuts, his dark eyes dull with death, that +beating heart forever stilled? She caught her breath with a whistling +sigh, felt her head swim at the picture. If he was--_if_--_he_--_was_--! +She fingered the big guns at her hip and savagery took hold of her. +Courtrey's left wrist to match his right. Then some pretty work about +him to make him wait--then a shot through his stomach--he would spit +blood and reel, but he wouldn't die--the butcher!--for a little while, +and she would taunt him with Harkness--and Jim. Last shot in the +back--with Old Pete--and with--with Kenset--the one man--Oh, the one +man in all the world whose quiet smile was unforgettable, whose vital +hands were upon hers now, like ghost-hands, would always be upon hers +if she lived to be old like Anita or died at dawn today! And Kenset +had counseled her to peace! To keep the stain of blood from her own +hands! She laughed aloud, suddenly, a ghastly sound that made cold +chills go down her rider's spine, for it was the mad laughter of the +blood-lust! Billy knew that Jim Last in his best moments was never +so coldly a killer as his daughter was tonight. + +So they traversed the roofed cut and came out into the starlight of +the first canyon. Up this they went in single file. They passed the +place where Albright had found the dark spray on the canyon wall, the +standing rock where the gun with the untrue firing pin had kicked away +its shell. A little farther on was the disturbed and trampled heap of +slide which had held Old Pete's body. In silence they rode on, the +horses' hoofs striking a million echoes from the reverberating +crosscuts. + +The moon was shining above, but here there was only a sifted light, a +ghostly radiance of starlight and painted walls. Tharon, riding ahead, +went unerringly forward as if she traveled the open ways of the Valley +floor. She turned from the main canyon toward the left and passed the +mouth of Old Pete's snow-bed. Between this and that standing spire and +pinnacle she went, with a strong certainty that presently stirred +Billy to speech. + +"Tharon, dear," he said gently, "hadn't we better leave a mark or two +along this-a-way? Ain't you got no landmarks?" + +"Can if you want," the girl said briefly, "I don't need landmarks." + +"Then how you know the way? There ain't no one knows th' Canon +Country--but Courtrey." + +"I don't know it," she said simply but with profound conviction. "I'm +_feelin'_ it, Billy. I know I'm goin' straight to th' Cup o' God. I'm +blind as a bat, it seems, yet goin' straight." + +She lifted a hand and crossed herself. + +"Goin' straight--Mary willin'--an' I'll come back straight. It lies up +there an' to th' left again." She made a wide gesture that swept up +and out, embracing the towering walls, the half-seen peaks against the +stars. + +Billy shut his lips and said no more. + +Up there lay False Ridge, the sinister, dropping spine that came down +from the uplands outside where the real great world began, and lured +those who traveled down it to crumbling precipice and yawning pit, to +sliding slope and slant that, once ridden down, could never be scaled +again, according to the weird stories that were told of it. + +But if Tharon went to the Canons, there lay his trail, too. If she +went down False Ridge to death in the pits and waterless cuts, he +asked no better lot than to follow--the faithful dog at her foot, the +shadow at her shoulder. + +And so it was that dawn crept up the blue-velvet of the night sky and +sent its steel-blue light deep in the painted splits, and they rode +unerringly forward up the sounding passes. + +When the light increased enough to show the way they came abruptly to +the spot where it was necessary to leave the horses. The floor of the +canyon up which they were traveling lifted sharply in one huge step, +breast-high to a man. + +Tharon in the lead halted and looked for a moment all up and down the +wondrous maze of pale, tall openings that encompassed them all round. + +She turned in her saddle and looked back the way they had come. There +was darker shadow, going downward, but here and there those pale +mouths gaped, long ribbons of space dropping from the heights above +down to their level. + +Up any one a man might turn and lose himself completely, for they in +turn were cut and ribboned with other mouths, leaving spires and walls +and faces a thousand-fold on every hand. + +Tharon, even in the tensity and preoccupation of the hour, drew in her +breath and the pupils of her blue eyes spread. + +"Th' Canon Country!" she said softly, "I always knew it would be like +this--too great to tell about! I knew it would hold somethin' for +me--always knew it--either life an' its best--or death." + +There was a simple grandeur about the earnest words, and Billy, his +face grey in the steely light, felt the heart in his breast thrill +with their portent. + +No matter what the Canons held for her--either that glorious +fulfillment of life, or the simple austerity of death--he would have a +part in it, would have served her to the last, true to the love he +bore her, true to himself. + +And nothing--nothing under God's heaven, save death itself--could ever +wipe out the memory of that kiss, given from the depths of her loving +heart, the sign-manuel of her undying affection and friendship, the +one and only touch of her inviolate red lips that he had ever known +the Mistress of Last's to give to any man, save Jim Last himself. + +He wiped a hand across his forehead, damp with more than the night +cold, and dismounted. + +"We'll leave th' horses here," he said. "I've an extra rope to string +across an' make a small corral." + +He did not add that he would fasten this slim barrier lightly, so that +a horse that really wanted to break out--in the frantic madness of +thirst, say,--might do so. + +Then he set about his task--but Tharon stood with strained eyes +looking up--and up--and ever up to the dimly appearing, looming spine +of False Ridge. + +Over there, she knew in her heart, lay the hidden Cup o' God, with its +secret, the secret that meant all the world to her. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE UNTRUE FIRING PIN + + +Tharon turned back and looked long at El Rey. She wondered if she +would ever see the great silver-blue stallion again, ever feel the +wind singing by her cheeks, ever hear the thunder of his running on +the hollow ranges. She saw the stain of Jim Last's blood on the big +studded saddle and a pain like death stabbed her. + +"I'll get him," she had promised on that tragic day, "so help me God!" +and had made the sign of the Cross. + +What did she now? + +Cast away all certainty of that fulfilment because a man--a man almost +a stranger--lay somewhere in the Canon Country, crawled somewhere +along False Ridge, perhaps, wounded and sick with fever. + +"Oh, hurry!" she whispered as Billy made secure his last light knot in +the rope gateway across the cut and came to join her. + +She scrambled up the bench in the canyon floor, gained her feet and +went forward at a rush. + +"Steady, Tharon," warned the rider, "you ain't used to climbin'. Save +your wind." + +It was true advice. Long before the sun was high overhead and day was +broad in the painted cracks she had begun to heed it. As she swung up +the ever lifting floors, threaded this way and that between the thin +intercepting walls that towered hundreds of feet straight up, she cast +her wide eyes up in wonder. Always she had watched the Canon Country +from her western door, always it had held her with a binding lure. + +There was that about its mystery, its austere majesty, that had +thrilled her heart from babyhood. She had pictured it a thousand times +and always it had looked just so--pink and grey and saffron, pale and +misty with light when the sun was high, blue and wonderful and black +as the luminary lowered, leaving the quick shadows. + +Hour after hour they climbed, mostly in silence, speaking now and then +some necessary word of caution, of assent. This way and that Tharon +turned, but always moving upward in the same direction. From time to +time Billy dropped a shred of the red kerchief about his neck, touched +the soft walls with the handle of the knife he carried. This left a +mark plain as a trail to his trained eyes. + +At noon they halted for a little rest. From Tharon's saddle Billy had +taken the flask of water, the tightly rolled bundle of bread and meat +in its meal-sack. They ate sparingly of this, drank more sparingly of +the water. Billy wondered miserably how soon this last might become +more precious than fine gold to him, as he thought of the waterless +pockets of the blind and sliding country. + +Long before she had rested sufficiently Tharon was up and ready to go. +Ever her eager eyes were on the heights above. Ever they turned to the +left of the steady line she set herself through and above the winding +passes. From time to time Billy looked back. There was not a sign by +which one might tell which way he had come if the last mark he made +was around the first corner. Hundreds and thousands of spires and +faces towered about them. It was a mystic maze of dead stone, cut and +weathered by the elements. + +"No wonder!" he told himself, "that the Indians call it the Enchanted +Land!" + +"We'll reach False Ridge tomorrow, Billy," Tharon told him confidently, +"an' over it lies God's Cup. There's water there--an' Kenset." + +"What makes you think so?" + +"I don't know. Just feel. He's there--alive or--" a half sob clutched +at her voice--"or dead. But he's there." + +"There'll be some one with him if he's alive, most likely." + +"Sure," said Tharon briefly. + +All the afternoon they traveled, sometimes touching with outstretched +hands the faces on either side of them, again walking upward through +majestic halls, solemn and beautiful. Everything about them was +beautiful, the height, the sheer, straight walls, the myriad little +blue shadows of tiny projections on their faces. Night came so early +in the pits that long before they wished they were compelled to camp. +In a blind pocket, walled like a room and round as an apple, they +stopped, and Billy spread down the blanket he had taken from +Drumfire's back. This was their only preparation. They had nothing to +do, no fire to build, no water to bring. + +Tharon, scarcely conscious of the many miles she had traveled since +the previous night, sat down upon the blanket, gathered her knees in +her arms and stared at the vague blue phantoms of cliffs through the +tall straight mouth that led into this sheltered pocket. + +Outside the winds were drawing up the canyons. All day they had walked +in this wind. It drew constantly up and down the cuts, this way and +that, like contrary currents that met and fought each other, swung in +together, went a little way in peace, to again split and surge away +through other channels. The echoes were alive with every sound, both +of their own making and that of the wind's. A constant sighing droned +through the depths, a mournful, whispering sound that sent the shivers +down Tharon's spine, made her think sadly of all the tragedies she had +ever known. + +Billy, lying full length beside her, his hands beneath his head, +looked up to the narrow blue spot of sky so far away, and thought his +own thoughts, and they were not wholly sad. + +They fell to talking, softly, in low tones, as if in all the +mysterious solitude there might be one to hear, and it was mostly +speech of long ago--when Billy had first come into Lost Valley. + +After a long and quiet hour the man insisted that she should +sleep--that after the hard day and in view of the coming hard morrow, +she needed rest. + +"But I'm not tired, Billy," Tharon protested, "no more'n as if I'd +been ridin' all day after th' cattle." + +But Billy shook his head and hollowed a little place in the soft slide +stuff at the Wall's foot. In this he spread the blanket, folding it +half back. + +"Lie down," he commanded, "an' you'll be asleep so quick you won't +know when it happens." + +Tharon slipped off her daddy's belt and stretched her slim young form +in the hollow, which fitted it like a cradle. Not for nothing had +Billy slept out many a night with nothing save the earth and stars for +bed and blanket. The hollow was craftily deepened at hip and shoulder, +making a restful couch. As she settled herself therein he lapped the +loose half of the blanket over her and tucked it in. Then he took his +hat, folded it sharply and placed it under the tawny head. + +In its place he would fain have laid his heart. + +His fingers, settling the improvised pillow, tangled themselves +wistfully in the sun-bright hair, and the boy groaned aloud. + +"What's the matter, Billy, dear?" asked Tharon anxiously, but Billy +laughed lightly, a thin sound in the mighty caverns. + +"Nothing in God's world, Tharon," he lied. "Now go to sleep." + +And he walked away to the tall mouth and sat down with his back +against one of the walls. From his pocket he took papers and tobacco +and proceeded to roll himself a cigarette.... Dawn showed the narrow +doorway strewn with their butts, as leaves strew mountain trails in +autumn. + + * * * * * + +Things were ready to happen in Lost Valley--several things. + +At the Golden Cloud, Lola looked across the level stretches toward the +Stronghold with tragic dark eyes, and smiled at a dozen men whom she +scarcely saw. Settlers from all up and down the Wall drifted into +Corvan and out again, intent, silent, watchful. _Vaqueros_ and riders +from the Stronghold also came and went, as intent, as silent. They +passed each other with hostile eyes and trigger fingers were unusually +limber. The air was pregnant with change. + +Buck Courtrey was conspicuous by his absence. + +He was not seen in the town, neither was he at the Stronghold. + +There were soft whispers afloat that he was with the Pomos up under +the Rockface at the north. + +And at the Stronghold, poor Ellen, whiter than ever, more like a +broken lily drooping on its stem, trembled and waited for a day that +was set soon--too terribly soon!--the day, farcically appointed, for +the suit for divorce against her. + +Word of this was abroad through all the Valley. Underground +speculation was rife as to which of the two women whom Courtrey +favoured, Lola or Tharon, was responsible. Some said one, some the +other. But Lola knew. + +Then came the day itself--a golden summer day as sweet and bright as +that one years ago when Courtrey had married Ellen--at this same pine +building where the laughable legal farces were enacted now. + +Pale as a new moon Ellen rode in across the rolling stretches on one +of the Ironwoods, with Cleve beside her. She was spiritless, silent. +Cleve was silent, too, though for a far different reason. There was a +frown between his brows, a glitter in his narrowed eyes. He was +thinking of the only man in Corvan whom he had been able to persuade +to present Ellen's protest--Dick Burtree, one-time lawyer and man of +parts in the outside, now a puffed and threadbare vagabond, whose +paramount idea was whiskey and more whiskey. But Burtree could talk. +Over his mottled and shapeless lips could, on occasion, pour a stream +of pure oratory silver as the Vestal's Veil. + +When he was drunk he feared neither man nor devil, and he could speak +best so. Therefore Cleve had given him enough money in advance to put +him in trim. + +"What you think Buck'll say about me, Cleve?" Ellen asked anxiously. +"What's he mean to accuse me of?" + +"Any dirty thing he can trump up, Sis," said Cleve gravely, "he's +a-goin' to make it a nasty mess--an' I wish to God you'd jest ride on +down th' Wall with me an' never even look back." + +He leaned from his saddle and took the blue-veined hand in his. There +was an unspeakable tenderness in his eyes as he regarded his sister. +"What you say, Ellen? There's life below, an' work an' other men. +You'll marry again, sometime----" + +But Ellen shook her head with its maize-gold crown. + +"Nary other man, Cleve," she said gently. "I'm all Buck's woman." + +So they rode on toward the town, and Cleve knew that his last faint +hope was dead. + +In the town itself there was a stir. Courtrey was there, and Wylackie +Bob, and Black Bart and Arizona, a bunch of dark, evil men in all +surety. + +The Ironwoods were in evidence everywhere, but strange to say, there +were no Finger Marks. Not a man from the Holding was in town. + +When Cleve and Ellen, alone together, rode in, it lacked yet a half +hour of the time set for trial. There was no place to go but Baston's, +so they dismounted at the hitch-rack. Ellen, swaying on her feet, +looked all around with her big pale eyes, and when she saw Courtrey +some distance away she put a hand to her heart as simply as a hurt +child. She was a pitiful creature in her long white dress, for she +had ridden in on an old sidesaddle, and she shook out the crumpled +folds in a wistful attempt to look proper. On her head was the +inevitable sunbonnet of slats and calico. + +As she went up the steps of the store with Cleve, Lola of the Golden +Cloud, blazing like a comet in her red-and-black came face to face +with her purposely. What was in Lola's head none would ever know, but +she wanted to see Courtrey's wife. + +As they met they stopped dead still, these two women who loved one +man, and the look that passed between them was electric, deep, +revealing. They stood so long staring into each other's eyes that +Cleve, frowning, plucked Ellen by the sleeve and made to push +forward. + +But as suddenly as a flash of light Lola reached out her two hands and +caught Ellen's in a tight clasp that only women know, the swift, +clinging clasp of the secret fellowship of those who suffer. + +For one tense moment she held them, while Ellen swayed forward for all +the world as if she would sink in upon the deep full breast of this +wanton whom she had hated! Then the spell broke, they fell apart with +a rush, Lola swung out and went down the steps, while Ellen obediently +followed Cleve into Baston's store, where she sat on a nail keg and +waited in a dull lethargy. Outside Courtrey, who had witnessed the +thing from across the street, slapped his thigh and laughed +uproariously. + +It was a funny sight to him. But Lola's beautiful black eyes blazed +across at him with a light that none had ever seen before in their +inscrutable depths. + +Then the hour struck, and all Corvan, it seemed to Cleve, strung out +toward the Court House. This was to be in open court--a spectacle. +From somewhere in the adobe outskirts of the town came Ellen's serving +women, most of them, whom Cleve had sent in early in the day. They +fell in with her and so, with only the brother who had never failed +her and these dusky women of the silent tongues to back her, Ellen +Courtrey went to her crucifixion as truly as though she had been one +of the two thieves on Golgotha. + +At the sight of Courtrey across the big bare room she went whiter than +she was, if such a thing were possible, and slid weakly into the chair +placed for her. + +Then the thing proceeded--swiftly, lightly, with smiles on the faces +of the crowd. + +Old Ben Garland on the judge's bench, was furtive, scared, nervous, +fiddling with his papers and clearing his throat from time to time. + +The county clerk at his table made a great deal out of the ceremony +of swearing in the witnesses--Wylackie Bob, Black Bart, Arizona and +one young Wylackie Indian woman who worked at the Stronghold. Cleve +put up only the serving women whom he had sent in, some seven of them, +every one of whom loved their mistress with the faithful fidelity of a +dog. These women knew Ellen Courtrey as not even the master of the +Stronghold himself knew her. They knew her in her idle hours, at her +small tasks, at her bedside, in the loving solicitude she displayed +for all of them--and they knew her on her knees in prayer, for Ellen +had a strange and simple religion, half Catholic and half Pomo +paganism. + +In the straight-backed chair they gave her Ellen sat like a statue, +sweet and still, a thing so obviously good that it seemed even +Courtrey himself must weaken to behold her. But not Courtrey. He was +on fire with the vision of Tharon Last on the Cup Rim's floor, shaking +her fist toward him in challenge--at Baston's steps calling him a +murderer and worse--at her western door, striking him from her with +the strength of a man. He saw the signal fire flaring across the +darkened Valley--and nothing on earth or in Heaven could have softened +him to the woman who bound him away from this fighting girl, this gun +woman whom he was breaking to him slowly but surely. He visioned her +in Ellen's room at the Stronghold--and the breath came fast in his +throat. + +And Ellen? + +Ah, Ellen was thinking of the long past day when this man had found +her in the barren rocklands and taken her with the high hand of a +lover. She, too, drifted away from the chilling courtroom with its +judge and its petty officials.... And then all suddenly she knew that +men were talking--and about her. She heard the drone of question and +answer--the rambling statements of the stranger, Arizona, accusing her +of strange things--of asking him to take her on rides in Courtrey's +absence--of swinging with him nights in the hammock by the watering +trough! + +She sat and listened with parted lips and large innocent eyes fixed on +the man in wonder. Cleve Whitmore clenched his hands until the nails +cut deep, but he held his tongue and controlled his face. Only the +blazing blue eyes spoke. She knew that Black Bart tried to tell +something, that he made some mistake or other and had to begin all +over again. There was a long and tedious time in here when she looked +away out the window to where the prairie grass was blowing in the +little winds and the shadows of clouds drifted across the green +expanse.... She was numb and far away with misery. She did not care +for anything in all this world. It seemed as if she was detached, +aloof, dead already in body as she was in soul.... And then she heard +the drawling voice of Wylackie Bob--and he was saying something +unspeakable--about her! She listened like one in a trance--then she +struggled up from her chair with tragic long arms extended, and the +cry that rang from her lips was piteous. + +"Buck!" it pealed across the stillness of the crowded room, "Buck!--it +ain't so! Never in this world, Buck! I ben true to you as your shadow! +Before God, it ain't true!" + +There was a stir throughout the crowd, a breath that was audible. +There were many of the Vigilantes there--a goodly number, all +wondering where Tharon Last was, where Kenset was, where were +the riders from Last's. They had expected, what they did not +know--something, at any rate, for this seemed somehow a test, a +turning point. But there was nothing. They stirred and waited, +like a great force heaving in its bed, blind, sluggish, but +wakening. + +And Ellen, chilled by Courtrey's sneering face, the cold disapproval +of Ben Garland's striking mallet, sank back in her chair and covered +her face with her shaking hands.... She heard some more awful +things--then the voice of Dick Burtree beginning soft, low, silver +like running waters. She heard it tell of that far away day of her +marriage--of the years that followed--of Courtrey's love for her--of +her own gentleness, her beauty, "like the tender sunlight of spring on +the snow and the golden sands"--of her service, her loyalty, her love +that had "never faltered nor intruded" that "patient obedience to her +master had but strengthened and made perfect." Of the pitiful thing +that her life had been this man made a wondrous thing, all sweet with +twilights and haloed with service. + +He talked until the courtroom was still as death and the Indian women +behind her were rocking in unison of grief. Then she heard questions +again and the gutteral soft voices of her women answering--with love +and devotion in every halting word. Once again the crowd in the room +stirred--and Courtrey's narrow eyes went over it in that cold, +promising glance. + +For once in his life Courtrey, the bully, felt a premonitory chill +down his spine--because for the first time that promising glance of +his failed of its effect! Only here and there along the rows of faces +did one cower. There were faces, many faces, that looked back at him +with steady eyes and tight lips.... Verily it was time he conquered +the riding, shooting, beautiful she-devil who had made this thing +possible! The sooner he got Tharon Last away from this bunch of spawn +the better. Then he would sweep in with all his old swift methods, +only sharper ones this time, and "clean" them all. When he got through +it would be a different man's Valley, make no mistake about that! + +Here Ellen looked straight into his eyes and both were conscious of +the shock. Ellen wilted and Courtrey frowned and struck a fist against +the railing near him.... He looked up and met the hesitating eyes of +Ben Garland on the bench and his own hardened down to pin points. + +The farce was finished save for the Judge's decision--Dick Burtree was +slumped in his chair, dead drunk and asleep. Wylackie Bob was lighting +a cigarette in his brown fingers, a smile on his evil mouth, his slow, +black eyes covering the slim white form of Ellen in a speculative way, +as if he dreamed of making true his blasphemous lies. Ellen was sweet +as a flower in her open-lipped beauty, her panting despair. Wylackie +did not notice the slim man beside her whose lips were so tight that +they were a mere line across his face. No one at the Stronghold +noticed Cleve much. + +Then Ben Garland was speaking, and Ellen gathered her dim wits enough +to make out that he was saying strange things--awful things--that had +to do with Courtrey's freedom. + +Then she knew--swaying and groping with her blue-veined hands--that +the thing was done--that she was no longer a wife. That she would +never again sleep in the bend of Courtrey's arm as she had slept in +those golden days of long ago--that she was an outcast, blackened +beyond all hope by the damning and unchoice words of Wylackie Bob.... +Then the world faded out for Ellen in merciful blackness. + +The petty officials rose with laughter and clanking of boots on the +board floors--the crowd filed out in a striking silence. Never before +had a crowd in Lost Valley gone out from a courtroom in that strange +and bodeful silence. + +The sight of Ellen lying white and limp across Cleve Whitmore's +shoulder like a sack of grain, as he passed out with the moving mass, +had an odd effect. It was partly the white dress that did it--and the +time was ripe. + +Courtrey and his gang were toward the fore--first out. They spread off +to one side with jest and quip, with flash of bottle and slap on +shoulder. The populace thinned a bit from the steps.... And then +suddenly as a pistol shot Cleve Whitmore's voice rang out like a +clarion. + +"Wylackie!" it pealed across the subdued noises, "You ---- ---- ---- +hell hound. _Turn round!_" + +There was death in it. + +The gun man whirled, drawing like lightning. In the Court House door, +Cleve Whitmore with his sister's limp form on his shoulder, beat him +to it. + +He had drawn as he called. Before the words were off his lips he +pulled the trigger and shot Wylackie through the heart. + +As his henchman fell Courtrey's good hand flashed to his hip, but +Dixon of the Vigilantes, shot out an arm and knocked him forward from +behind. + +For the second time Courtrey had missed a life because a brave heart +dared him. Old Pete had paid the price for that trick. Dixon had no +thought of it. + +And in one moment the chance was past, for a sound began to roar from +that silent crowd which had poured from the courtroom--the deep, +bloodcurdling sound of the mob forming, inarticulate, uncertain. + +For the first time in his life Courtrey felt real fear grip him. + +He had killed and stolen and wronged among these people and gotten +away with it. He had never feared them. They had been silent. Now with +the first deep rumble from the concrete throat of Lost Valley he got +his first instinctive thrill of disaster. + +He stood for a moment in utter silence. Then he flung up his hands, +snapped out an order, whirled on his heel and went swiftly to the near +rack where stood Bolt and the rest of the Ironwoods. Like a set of +puppets on strings his men drew after him--and they left Wylackie Bob +where he fell. + +In a matter of seconds the whole Stronghold gang was mounted and +clattering down the street--out of the town toward the open range. + + * * * * * + +And the killer on the Court House steps? + +He stood where he was and looked with blazing eyes over the motley +crowd beneath him. Steptoe Service made a step toward him, looked +round, wet his lips and thought better of it. + + * * * * * + +And then, in another second, the crowd was a mob and the mob was the +Vigilantes. Some one took Ellen from Cleve's shoulder with careful +hands and carried her away. Then some one reached down and picked him +up bodily. Another joined, and they set him on their shoulders, +lifting him high. The inarticulate mob cry swelled and deepened and +rose to a different sound--a shout that gathered volume and roared out +across the spaces where Courtrey rode with a menace, a portent. + +With one accord the mob started on a journey around Corvan. + +White as Ellen, Cleve Whitmore rode that triumphant journey, his eyes +still blazing, his lips tight. The town went wild. Public feeling came +out on every hand. Daring took the weak, hope took the oppressed, and +they called Courtrey's reign right there. For three uproarious hours +the bar-tenders could not wipe off their bars. + +A new regime was ushered in--and she who had been its sponsor was not +there to see it. + + * * * * * + +When the hour of Change was striking for Corvan and all Lost Valley, +Tharon Last, who had set it to strike, was scaling False Ridge in the +Canon Country. Grim, ash-pale with effort, her blue eyes shining, she +climbed the Secret Way that few had ever found. + +How she had come to it through the tortuous cuts and passes was a +marvel of homing instinct--the heart that homed to its object. It had +seemed to her all along this strange, tense journey, that she had had +no will of her own, that she had held her breath and shut her eyes, as +it were, and gone forward in obedience to some strange thing within +that said, "turn here," "go thus." Billy following behind, watched her +with tight lips and a secret wonder. As she had told him she would +"go straight, Mary willing," so she had gone straight--and it seemed, +truly, as if it were right that she should, no matter how his heart +ached to see this thing. + +Verily there was something supernatural about it all, something +uncanny. + +If it had been he, Billy, whom Tharon loved, and had he lain, wounded +in the Cup o' God, would the girl have been given this blind instinct +for direction? Would she have gone as unerringly to the Secret Way? + +Nay--there must be something in the old saying that, for every heart +in the world there was its true mate. + +Tharon had found hers in Kenset. + +But where would he ever find his? The boy shook his fair head +hopelessly at the sliding floors. For all perfection there must be +sacrifice. He was the sacrifice for Tharon's perfection--a willing +one, so help him! + +That they had found the Secret Way across False Ridge was perfectly +plain, for here in the living rock before them were marks, the first +marks they had found in the Canons. Thin, small crosses, cut in the +stone of the walls, began to lead upward from the last liftings cut +straight up the Rockface of False Ridge itself. It seemed, to look at +the dim traces, that no living thing without wings could scale that +steep and forbidding cliff, but when they tried to climb, they found +that each step had been set with artful cunning. The set of steps +followed the form of a "switchback," working from right to left, and +always rising a little. False Ridge itself, a towering, mighty spine, +came down in a swiftly dropping ridge from somewhere in the high upper +country at the west of all the canyons. It was known to lead +deceptively down among the cuts and passes, as if it went straight +down to the lower levels, and to end abruptly in a precipice that none +could descend or climb. On all its rugged sides there were treacherous +slopes which looked hard enough to support a man, but which, once +stepped on, gave sickeningly away to slide and slither for a hundred +feet straight down to some abrupt edge, where they fell in dusty +cataracts to blind basins and walled cups below. + +In these blind cups were many skeletons of deer and other animals that +had ventured down from the upper world, never to return. Somewhere up +here must be the bones of Canon Jim. + +But the Secret Way was safe. Under every carefully worked out step +there was solid stone, for every handhold there was a firm stake set. +These stakes were old for the most part, but here and there had been +set in a new one--Courtrey's work, they made no doubt, for Courtrey +was said to know the Canons. It took Tharon and Billy two hours to +make the climb, stopping from time to time to rest. At such times the +boy stood close and took her hand. It was grim work looking down the +sheer face, and one might well be excused for holding a hand for +steadiness. And it would soon be the time for no more touches of this +girl's fair self for Billy. + +And so, climbing steadily and in comparative silence, these two, whose +hearts were strong, came at last to the top of False Ridge--a thin +knife-blade of stone--and looked abruptly and suddenly down on the +other side. + +With a little gasp Tharon put a hand to her throat, for there, an +unbelievably short distance down, lay the Cup o' God, without a doubt. +A small, round glade of living green, watered by a whispering stream +that lost itself the Lord knew where, it lay like a tiny gem in the +pink stone setting. Trees stood in utter quiet about its edges, for +there was here no slightest breath of air. Lush grass carpeted its +level floor. And there, almost directly under the marked way leading +down, lay a tiny camp--the ashes of a dead fire, a gun against a tree, +and--here Tharon leaned far out and looked as if her very spirit would +penetrate the distance--a blanket spread on the level earth, on which +there lay the body of a man! + +It was a trim body, they could see from where they stood, clad in dark +garments of olive drab that hugged the lean limbs close. + +"Kenset!" whispered Tharon with paling lips. "Kenset of th' +foothills,--an'--he--looks," she wet those ashy lips, "he--looks like +he is dead." + +Without another word she set her feet in the precarious way and went +down so fast that Billy's heart rose in his throat and choked him, and +for the first time since he could remember, he called fervently upon +his Maker with honest reverence. He thought at every slip and scramble +that she must fall and go hurtling down the Rockface. + +But that uncanny instinct which had brought her this far was at her +command still. She went down faster than it seemed possible for +anything to go, and before the rider was able to catch up she had +leaped to the grassy floor, and was running forward toward that still +form on the blanket. + +"Kenset!" she cried like a bugle, "Kenset! Kenset! Oh,--David!" + +And then it was that the quiet form stirred, rolled over on its side, +lifted itself on an elbow--and held out two arms that wavered +grotesquely, but were eloquent of love's power and its need. + +And the Mistress of Last's flung herself on her knees, gathered up +this strange man as if he had been a child, pressed him hard against +her breast, and kissed him as we kiss our dead. She pushed his face +from her and looked into it as if she would see his very soul, the +tears running on her white cheeks, her lips working soundlessly. + +This was love! This agony--this ecstasy--this sublime forgetting of +all the world beside--this reward after struggle. + +Billy stood for a second at the foot of the Wall, and the nails cut in +his palms. Then he whirled and went fast as he could walk toward the +first trees that presented themselves--and he could not see where he +was going for the bleak grey mist that swam in his eyes. + +This was love! This dreary colour of the golden sunlight of noon in +the high country--this dumb ache that locked his throat--this high +courage that brought him serving love's object to the bitter-sweet +end. How long he stood there he did not know. His heart was dead, like +the weathered stone country about him. He knew that he heard Tharon's +voice after a while, that golden voice which had been the bells of +Last's, in rapid question and answer--and Kenset's voice, too, weak +and slow, but filled with joy unspeakable. It was lilting and soft, a +lover's voice, a victor's voice, and presently he caught a few of the +broken words that passed between them--"Clean! Clean! Oh, Tharon, +darling--there is no blood on these dear hands! Tell me you did not +kill Courtrey!" + +He heard Tharon answer in the negative. + +And then all the world fell about him, it seemed, for a gun cracked +from the trees beyond him and a wasp stung his cheek. + +In one instant the sunlight became brilliant again, the joy came back +in the day. Here was something more to do for Tharon, a new task at +hand when he had thought his tasks were all but done. + +He whirled, looked, drew his six-gun and began firing at the man who +stood in plain sight just where he had stepped into the Cup from the +mouth of a little blind cut where the stream went out in noise and +lost itself. + +This was a big man, sinister and cold and dark, a half-breed Pomo of +Courtrey's gang, a still-hunter who did a lot of the dirty work which +the others refused. Billy had seen him before, knew his record. + +Now they two stood face to face and fired at each other swiftly, +coolly. He saw the half-breed stagger once, knew that he had touched +him somewhere. And then a sound cut into the snapping of the shots, a +sound that was like nothing he had ever heard in all his life before, +a sound as savage as the roar of a she-bear whose cub is killed before +her eyes. As he flung away his empty gun and snatched the other, he +moved enough to bring into his range of vision Tharon Last, standing +over Kenset, her mouth open in that savage cry. + +Then before he could draw and fire again he saw the prettiest piece of +work he had ever witnessed. He saw the gun woman crouch and stoop, saw +her hands flash in Jim Last's famous backhand flip, saw the red flame +spurt from her hips, and the Pomo half-breed flung up his hands and +fell in a heap, his face in the grass. He did not move. Only a long +ripple passed over his body. He was still as the ageless rocks, as +much a part of eternity. For a moment Billy stood, the gun hanging in +his hand. Then he knew that Tharon was coming toward him--that her +hands were on his shoulders--her deep eyes piercing his with a look +that meant more to him than all the earth beside. It was the fierce, +mother-look of changeless affection, the companion to that savage cry. +She held him in a pinching grip, and made sure that he was unhurt, +save for that scratch on the cheek. + +"If he had killed you, Billy," she said tensely, "I'd a-gone a-muck +an' shot up th' whole of Lost Valley." + +And the boy knew in his heart she spoke the solemn truth. + +He slipped his hands down her arms and caught her fingers tightly. + +"Stained!" his heart whispered to itself in stifling exhilaration, "in +spite of all--her first killin'--an' for me!" + +Then he could bear her face no more, and turned to look at Kenset. +Half off the edge of his blanket the forest man lay with his face +buried in his hands, and beside him lay another gun, the smoke still +curling from its muzzle. + +"By God!" said the rider, softly, "what's this?" and he ran forward to +pick up the weapon. + +"Three of us!" he said aloud, "pepperin' him at once! Kenset, where +did you get this gun?" + +But Kenset did not speak. His shoulders trembled, his dark head was +bowed to the earth. + +"Answer me," said Billy, "for as sure's I live, this here's Buck +Courtrey's favourite gun--the gun with the untrue firin' pin. Look +here." And he held it toward Tharon who leaned near to look. True +enough. + +In the right side of the plunger there was a small, shining nick, as +if, at some previous time, a tiny chink had been broken out of it. + +"I found it where I saw Courtrey hide it that night they brought me +here," said Kenset in a muffled voice. "I crawled when the Pomo was +out in the Canons after meat." + +"An' you used it--at last. I see. Not till th' last." + +"No," said Kenset miserably, "not till the last." + +Slowly Tharon knelt down beside him and put a tender arm across his +shoulders. Her face was shining--like Billy's heart. + +"Mr. Kenset," she said softly, "I told you once that I was afraid you +was soft--like a woman--that you wouldn't shoot if you had a gun. An' +you said, 'You're right. I wouldn't. Not until th' last extremity.' + +"What was this last extremity? Tell me. Why did you shoot when you +knew right well I'd get him myself?" + +"To beat you to it!" cried the man with sudden passion, "to take the +stain myself!" + +For a long moment the girl knelt there beside him and gazed unseeingly +at the inscrutable calm of the silent country. Something in the depths +of her blue eyes was changing--deepening, growing in subtle beauty, as +if the universe was suddenly become perfect, as if there was nowhere a +flaw. + +"There's only one kind of man, after all, Mr. Kenset," she said at +last with a sweet dignity, "th' man who is true an' honest to th' +best there is in him, accordin' to his lights. That's my kind of +man." + + * * * * * + +Then she rose, and it was as if a light of activity burned up in her. +She became practical on the instant. + +"I'm glad you brought th' thin rope, Billy," she said, "it's longer'n +mine. An' th' little axe, too. We'll need 'em all to get him up an' +down False Ridge. An' we must get busy right pronto. Th' Pomo killer +we'll leave where he is. The Canon Country will make him a silent +grave." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +FINGER MARK AND IRONWOOD AT LAST + + +It was another noon in Lost Valley. The summer sun sailed the azure +skies in majesty. Little soft winds from the south wimpled the grass +of the rolling ranges, shook all the leaves of the poplars. Down the +face of the Wall the Vestal's Veil shimmered and shone like a million +miles of lace. + +At Corvan wild excitement ruled. Swift things had come upon them, +things that staggered the tight-lipped community, even though it was +used to speed and tragedy. For one thing, Ellen, pale, sweet flower, +had hanged herself in the gaudy apartment of Lola behind the Golden +Cloud where the dance-hall woman had peremptorily brought her when +they took her off Cleve Whitmore's shoulder. She left a little note +for Courtrey, a pathetic short scrawl, which simply reiterated that +she had "ben true to him as his shadow," and that if he did no longer +want her, she did not want herself. + +At that pitiful end to a guiltless life, Lola, who knew innocence and +sin, sat down on the only carpeted floor in Corvan and wept. When she +finished, she was done with Corvan and Lost Valley, ready to move on +as she had moved through an eventful life. + +For another thing, two strange men had ridden up the Wall from the +Bottle Neck a few days back, and they had put through some mysterious +doings. + +This day at noon these two strangers were riding down on Corvan from +up the Pomo way, while from the Stronghold, Buck Courtrey's men were +thundering in with the cattle king at their head. He was grim and +silent, black with gathering rage. His news-veins tapped the Valley, +he knew a deal that others tried to hide, and he was coming in to +reach a savage hand once more toward that supremacy which he knew full +well to be slipping from him. + +And from the blind mouth in the Rockface at the west where the roofed +cut led to the mystery and the grandeur of the Canon Country, a +strange procession came slowly out to crawl across the green +expanse--a woman on a silver horse, a rider on a red roan who sat +behind the saddle and bore in his arms a man whose heavy head lolled +upon his shoulder in all but mortal weakness. + +Thus Fate, who had for so long played with life and death in Lost +Valley, tiring of the play, drew in the strings of the puppets and set +the stage for the last act. + +As Tharon and Billy crept up to Baston's store and stopped at the +steps, a dozen eager men leaped forward to their help. + +"Easy!" warned the girl. "He's ben hurt a long time, an' he's had an +awful trip. There's fever in him, an' th' wound in his shoulder opened +a bit with th' haulin'. Lay him down on th' porch a while to rest." + +But Kenset opened his dark eyes with the old quiet smile and looked at +her. + +"I'm worth a dozen dead men yet, Miss Last," he said. + +As he lay, a trim, long figure in his semi-military garments, on the +edge of the porch, the populace of Corvan streamed in from the +outskirts and gathered in the open street. Whispers and comments were +rife among them, a new courage was noticeable everywhere. The +Vigilantes were present, many of them. + +Question and answer passed swiftly and quietly back and forth between +Dixon, Jameson, Hill and Tharon. In a few pregnant moments she knew +what had happened in Corvan--they knew the secret of False Ridge and +the Cup o' God. + +"An' now these strangers from below--they ben a-actin' awful queer, +ain't a-feared o' nothin' an' they ben goin' all over like a couple o' +hounds. One of 'em's got on a badge of some sort," said Jameson, +"didn't mean t' show it, I allow, but Hill, here, seen it by +chanct----" + +Kenset raised himself quickly on an elbow. + +"By all that's lucky!" he said softly, excitedly. "Burn-Harris and +O'Hallan! My Secret Service men!" + + * * * * * + +And it was even so, for by the end of another hour the two strangers +came riding in and were brought forward to the steps where Kenset lay, +to clasp his hand and greet him with all the pleasure of previous +acquaintance. + +Then they requested that a space be cleared to the end of ear-shot and +together with Kenset, Tharon, Billy, and all the Vigilantes, they held +a long and earnest colloquy. + +At its end Kenset's eyes were deep and troubled, but Tharon's were +beginning to glow with the old fire that all the Holding knew, the +leaping flame that rose and died and rose again, exciting to the +beholder, promising, threatening, unfathomable. + +"Why, it's a cinch!" said O'Hallan, "a dead moral cinch! Don't see how +it's held on like it has. Couldn't have in any other place in the good +old U. S. A. but this God forsaken hole! Well named, Lost Valley! +Why, we've found enough evidence already to convict a dozen men! Your +Courtrey's the man that planned a dozen murders, I can see that, and +he's pulled off a lot of them himself. The people are talking now, +rumbling from one end of the Valley to the other. We've had to hold up +our hands to ward them off lately. Your Vigilantes here have opened up +since we got them together and showed some of them your letter. You +were wise to tell us to go ahead if you were not here--what did you +look for?" + +"Just about what I got," said Kenset smiling, "and I wanted things to +be pushed through anyway." + +"Well,--they're pushing," said Burn-Harris. "Your little old sheriff +has had the fear-of-the-Lord put into him somewhat. He's shaking in +his boots about the snow-packer. There's only one thing lacking to +make our grip close down on Courtrey, and that's vital--the gun with +the untrue firing pin you speak about in your instructions." + +"Not lackin'," said Tharon grimly, "we've got it, Mister." + +The Secret Service man whirled to her. + +"You have?" he cried, "then show me your man!" + +But Tharon stood for a long moment looking off across the rolling +green stretches, toward the north where a moving dot was drawing +down--the riders from the Stronghold. + +"This," she said at last, tapping the gun which Billy handed over, +"this, then, is proof--is proof in law?" + +"If it's the true gun that fits the shell which Mr. Kenset left for us +here at Baston's--yes." + +"Then," said Burn-Harris, "a little time and your man's ours as sure's +the sun shines. Why, this is a hot-bed of crime--there's enough work +here to keep a whole force busy for months." + +But Tharon Last did not heed his words. Her mind had leaped away from +the present back to that day in spring when Jim Last came home to die. +She heard again his last command, "Th' best gun woman in Lost Valley," +heard her own voice promising to his dulling ears, "I'll get him, so +help me, God!" + +And this was the end. Strangers were waiting to fulfill that promise, +to take her work out of her hands. She absently watched the moving dot +take form and sharply string out into a line of riding men. These +strangers with their hidden signs of authority would bring to his just +desserts Buck Courtrey, the man who had instigated the killing of poor +Harkness, who had personally shot her daddy in the back! For them, +then, she had made her crosses of promise in the granite under the +pointing pine. + +They who had no right in Lost Valley would settle its blood scores, +would pay her debts! + +She frowned and the fingers of her right hand fiddled at the gun-butt +at her hip. + +For what had she striven all these many months? For what had she +perfected herself in Jim Last's art? + +A little white line drew in about her lips, the flame in her blue eyes +leaped and flickered. The tawny brows gathered into a puckered frown. + +Billy, watching, moved restlessly on his booted feet. He it was who +saw--who feared. He touched her wrist with timid fingers and she +flashed him a swift glance that half melted to a smile. Then she +forgot him and all the rest--for the Ironwoods were thundering in from +the outside levels, were coming into town. + +Ahead rode Courtrey, big, black, keen, his wide hat swept back on his +iron-grey hair, an imposing presence. + +"Here's your man!" said Kenset softly, rising excitedly on his elbow. +"He's coming! And God grant that there is no bloodshed!" + +All of Corvan, so long meek and quiet under Courtrey's foot, moved +dramatically back to give him room to come thundering down to his +accounting. + +In a few seconds he would be encompassed by his enemies. + +And then, on the tick of fate, that universally unknown factor, a +woman's heart, flung its last pawn in the balance. + +Lola, gleaming like a bird of paradise in her gay habiliments, leaning +forward from the further steps of Baston's store where she had slipped +up unnoticed, cupped her white hands to her scarlet mouth, and sent +out a cry like a clarion. + +"Buck!" she called, bell-like, clear, far-reaching--"Buck! Turn back! +They've called your turn! It's all up for you! Go! Go--down--the Wall! +And--God bless you--Buck! Good-bye!" + +For one awful moment the great red Ironwood, Bolt, flung up his head +and slid forward on his haunches, ploughing up the earth in a cloud. + +Then, while the half-stunned crowd gaped in silence, he gathered +himself, straightened, whirled, shook his giant frame and leaped clear +of the ground in a spectacular turn. The man on his back snatched off +his hat and shook it defiantly at the town--the people--the very +Valley that he had ruled so long. It was a dramatic gesture--daring, +scorning, renouncing. Then, without a word to his henchmen, a single +look of farewell, Buck Courtrey struck the Ironwood, and was gone back +along the little street. + +His men whirled after him, but strange turn of destiny, they swung +directly north away from him, for he was turning south at the town's +edge. + +"For the--Wall!" breathed Lola, her face like milk, one hand on her +glittering breast. "He--goes--for below!" + +Then all the watchers knew the same. + +The master of the Stronghold, having played for Lost Valley and for a +woman and lost them both--was done with both. + +He leaned on the Ironwood's mighty neck and went south toward the +Bottle Neck. + +All eyes were upon him--all, that is, save the earnest grey ones of +Billy Brent. They were fixed in anguish on the face of Tharon Last +beside him--Tharon Last, who shoved the gun-butts hard down in the +holsters at her hips, who whirled on her booted heel, who cleared the +space between her and El Rey in three cat-like leaps. + +As she went up the stallion rose with her, came down with a pounding +of iron-shod hoofs, dropped his huge hips in the first leap--and was +away. + +Corvan saw the silver horse shoot out from its midst and woke from its +lethargy. + +"_Th' race!_" some one cried, high and shrill, "_th' race at last!_" + +The two strangers saw it, and their lips fell open with amaze. + +Kenset from his low porch saw it--and dropped his face on his arms. + +"Lord God!" he groaned, "it's come! I couldn't hold her! I might have +known! I might have known! She's Valley bred--she _is_ the Valley! +I--and all I stand for--chaff in the wind! Nothing could hold her now! +Aye--nothing could hold her." + +True at last to herself--true to Harkness--true to Jim Last--true to +the Vigilantes and to the Valley she loved, Tharon flung the sombrero +from her bright head, settled her feet in the stirrups, slid the rein +on El Rey's neck, leaned down above him and began to call in his +ears. + +No need of that cry. + +El Rey heeded nothing that she might say. She was not his master--never +had been. He had had but one, the big, stern man whose sharp word +had been his law--the one who had ever had his best, his love and his +speed. + +What was it now that rode in his saddle--the saddle with the long dark +stain? + +Assuredly it was not the slim girl-thing with the golden voice! + +El Rey had ever looked through, beyond her. + +Nay, it was something bigger, stronger, sterner--who shall say? +Perhaps the spirit of that master whom he had served, whom he had +brought faithfully home that night in spring, for whom he had looked +and listened all these weary months! There was something, indeed--for +El Rey, the great, lay down to earth and ran without the need of +guidance. He set the long red horse out there on the green plain +before him like a beacon and put the mighty machinery of his massive +body into motion. Bolt was a rival worthy of his best--Bolt, the king +of the Ironwoods, huge, spirited, fast as the wind and wild as fire. +El Rey's silver ears lay back along his neck, the mane above them was +like a cloud, his long tail streamed behind him like a comet--and +forgotten was his singlefooting. He ran, his great limbs gathering and +spreading beneath him--gathering and spreading--with the regularity, +of clock-work. + +Tharon's blue eyes were narrow as her father's, the little lines about +them stood out. She rode low, like a limpet clinging, and her mind was +on the two ahead--the man and the great bay horse. + +As she felt the wind sing by her cheeks, sting the tears beneath her +lids, she shut her lips tighter and hugged the pommel closer. + +The green carpet went by beneath her like a blur. The thunder of El +Rey's beating hoofs was like the sound of the cataracts when the +canyons shot their freshets from the Rockface. + +The note of his speed was rising--rising--rising. The blood began to +pound in her temples with pride and exultation. + +She saw the distance narrowing just the smallest bit between her and +Courtrey. Just the smallest trifle, indeed, but _narrowing_. + +"He ain't a-puttin' Bolt down to his best," she told herself tensely, +"I know what he can do." And she remembered that ride from the mouth +of Black Coulee to the pine-guarded glade--and Kenset. At that thought +she pressed her lips tighter. + +No thought of Kenset must come to her now--to weaken her with memory +of those pressing, vital hands of his above his pounding heart. + +No--she was herself again--Tharon Last, Jim Last's girl, the gun woman +of Lost Valley--and yonder went her father's killer. + +She leaned down and called again in El Rey's ear. + +No slightest spurt of speed rewarded her--nothing but the rising note. +Then she saw that the distance was widening--just a tiny bit. + +Truly it was widening. Courtrey, looking back, had caught the sun on +her golden hair, on her face as white as milk. He saw that her hands +were at her hips--loosely set back at her hips--and what thought he +might have had of mercy at her hands--what wild vision he might have +seen of speech with her--of parley--of persuasion--was dead. + +He leaned down and struck the Ironwood with his open hand. + +Bolt, the beautiful, leaped in answer. A little more--slowly--the +distance between pursuer and pursued widened. Then--Tharon blinked the +mist from her eyes to make sure--the gain was lost. Slowly, steadily, +El Rey closed up the extra width. Then for a time there was no change. +The open plain resounded to the roar of hoofs, the wind sang by like +taut strings struck. The earth was still that racing green blur +beneath. + +And still the electric note of rising speed hummed softly higher. + +If Jim Last rode his silver stallion to the goal of vengeance he must +surely have been satisfied. The great shoulders worked like pistons, +the whole massive body was level as the flowing floor beneath, the +steel-thewed limbs reached and doubled--reached and doubled--with +wonderful power and precision. + +And then at last Tharon knew--knew that El Rey was gaining, slowly, +steadily, surely. The splendid bay horse was running magnificently, +but El Rey ran like a super-horse. His silver head was straight as a +level, his ears laid back, his nostrils wide and flaring, red as +blood, his big eyes glowed with the wildness of savage flight. + +The great king was mad with speed! + +Jim Last's girl was mad also--mad with the lust of conquest, of +revenge. + +She rose a little from the stallion's whipping mane, and her blue eyes +burned on the man ahead. + +"I said I'd get you, Buck Courtrey!" she muttered, "that some day I'd +run th' Ironwoods off their feet--th' heart out of their master! + +"Run, damn you--for it's your last ride!" + +Then she dropped forward again and watched the distance closing down. + +Nearer--nearer--nearer! + +The note rose another notch. + +Never in his life had El Rey run as he ran now. Always he had had +reserves. He had them now. The bottom of his power was not reached. + +Bolt was doing his best. Once he threw up his head and foam flew on +the wind--red foam that shot back and whipped on Tharon's hand, a wet +pink stain, thinned and faded. + +At that sight an exultant cry, savage, inhuman, ugly, burst from her +throat. + +She was within long gunshot now--was closing her fingers lightly on +the blue gun-butts----. + +Courtrey heard that cry. + +He rose in his saddle--turned--flashed up his hand and fired. Quick as +the motion of the gun man was, Tharon Last was quicker. She dropped +over El Rey's shoulder like a cat, firing as she went. + +Courtrey's bullet clipped the cantle of the big saddle an inch above +her flattened leg across it. Hers did something else--what she had +dreamed of. It struck that other wrist of Courtrey's, the left--and +sent his six-gun tumbling. + +Once again she yelled as she came back in her saddle. + +And El Rey was closing--closing up the gap between. + +Once again Tharon raised her guns to shoot--both, this time, as her +daddy had taught her. This was the pinnacle of her life, her skill, +her training. + +Never again would she live a moment like it. She laughed and crouched +for the final act. + +But a sudden coldness went over her from head to foot, sent the hot +blood shaking down her spine. + +What was Courtrey doing? + +He rode straight up at last, like an Indian showing, and his bleeding +left hand swung at his side. With the other he had swept off his wide +hat, so that his handsome iron-grey head was bare to the summer sun. +His keen hawk face was lifted. He made a spectacular figure--like a +warrior, unarmed, waiting his end with courage. + +_Unarmed!_ + +That it was which struck Tharon like a hand across her face. The gun +he had used with his left hand was his only one! He had carried but +one since that night at the Stronghold when she had first marked him. + +She should have known! Word of this had been about Corvan and the +Valley. + +And so she had Buck Courtrey at her mercy. She could close the +lessening gap and kill him in his saddle---- + +But the icy blood still seemed to trickle down her back. + +She--and Jim Last--they had always fought in fair-and-open. They +were no murderers.... They did not strike in the dark--shoot a man from +ambush--nor kill a man unarmed.... And Kenset--Kenset of the +foothills--what had he said about the stain of blood--blood-guilt--clean +hands---- + +The girl caught her breath with a choking sob. + +The game was up. + +Neither Jim Last--nor Kenset--nor she--would shoot a man unarmed. + +And Courtrey was riding toward the Bottle Neck. + +He would go down the Wall to freedom. + +And the crosses in Jim Last's granite--they would be forever +unredeemed, a shame, a sadness, a living accusation! + +Nay--not that! Not that! + +She had promised--and the Law was waiting--the big Law of below. + +She was Jim Last's daughter still. + +She leaned closer to El Rey's neck--held her two guns ready--and rode +with the very wind. + +She was near now--she could see Courtrey's face, waxen white but +fearless, his dark eyes turned back toward her in a sort of desperate +admiration.... Courtrey loved strength and courage and all things wild +and fierce. She could see Bolt's staring eyeballs, his open mouth, +gasping and piteous. One more moment--another--yet one more--then she +rose in her stirrups and fired straight at the broad bay temple, +shining and black with sweat! + +The great gallant Ironwood went down in a huge arc--first his +beautiful head, then the sinking arch of his neck, then the shoulders +that had worked so wondrously. He rolled on his back like a hoop, his +iron-shod hoofs spinning for one spectacular moment in the air. Then +he lay at sudden ease, his still fluttering nose pointing directly +back the way he had come. + +With the first catching stumble of the true forefeet, the man on his +back had shot out of the saddle and far ahead. He landed twenty feet +away and squarely on his head and shoulders. Like Bolt, Courtrey's +body turned a complete somersault--and lay still, at sudden peace. + +Tharon Last and El Rey went on like an arrow--they could not stop. + +When at last she did draw the great king down she was far and away +from the spot. She turned her head, panting and dizzy, and looked +back.... She could see the prone red heap that was Bolt--a little way +beyond that other, lesser, darker heap.... + +For a long time she sat on El Rey's heaving back and stared unseeingly +at the green earth where the short grasses quivered in the little +wind. + +There was a deathly white line about her lips, but her eyes blazed +with the fire that had characterized them from birth, the flickering, +unfathomable flame that came and went. + +Then, presently, new lines came in her young face, unstable lines that +quivered and worked, and all the good green earth danced grotesquely +before her vision, for a wall of tears shut out the world. ... She +laid her head down on El Rey's cloudy mane--and wept. + + * * * * * + +It was early dawn at Last's Holding. The sun was not yet up behind the +eastern ramparts. The cottonwoods whispered in the dawn-wind, the +spring beneath the milk-house talked and murmured. Out in the big +corrals the cattle were beginning to stir and bawl. + +In the kitchen old Anita and young Paula had breakfast waiting for the +men. + +Deep in that dim south room where the pale Virgin kept watch and ward, +Kenset of the foothills slept in healing peace. + +And at the step of the western door, Billy stood by Golden--Golden the +beautiful, who ranked next to El Rey himself--and his face was lifted +to Tharon who drooped against the lintel with her forehead on her +arm. + +The boy held her hand clasped in both of his own, and there was a +yearning tenderness in his soft voice when he spoke, a pride and joy +ineffable that glowed above the pain that was never to leave him. + +"It ain't that I love you less, Tharon, dear," he said gently, "that I +must go. Not that, little girl. I'll love you till I die--that I know +in dead certainty. But I can't stay here--not where I'll have to see +you givin' all your sweet self to another man. A good man, too, +Tharon--I think there ain't a better one in th' land--but--well,--I +can't--that's all. I can't thank you for all you've done for me sence +you was a little mite of a girl--five years back,"--his voice broke a +bit, but he controlled it, "nor for th' joy you've given me--th' rides +together--an' th' jokes an' playin'----" + +He paused a moment, unhappily, and the mistress of Last's drooped more +heavily against the old adobe wall. + +"Nor for Golden here," went on the rider, "we'll be pals as long as we +both live--nor fer-fer--" he stopped again, hesitated, looked +yearningly at the quivering cheek against the curving arm, and went on +to the finish. + +"Nor fer that one kiss, Tharon--it's my one treasure for life, so help +me, God--that you give me that night. An' over all I want to thank you +fer--fer--killin' th' Pomo half-breed in th' Cup o' God--_fer you done +that trick fer me_! Th' one stain on your dear hands--fer me--the +_only_ one, fer Fate killed Courtrey, not you. His neck was clean +broke when they picked him up.... That memory will keep me alive, will +save th' beauty of th' stars at night fer me, will make th' rest worth +livin'.... That one kiss." + +He stopped again and stood for a long time looking at her as if he +would fix forever in his memory the beauty of her, the fire, the +spirit, the elusive quality that was Tharon Last herself. + +Then he sighed and smiled and gently shook the hand he held. + +"Come--tell me good-bye, Tharon, dear," he said softly. + +For answer the mistress of Last's once again reached out her arms and +drew his head to her heart--once more pressed her lips upon his own. + +"Oh, Billy," she said with a sound of tears in her voice, "Kenset's +th' one man--that's true, an' I'm helpless before th' fact--but +there'll never be another can take your place in my heart--there'll +never be no one to ride with me in th' Big Shadow in just th' same +way, Billy--to hold my hand as we come home to Last's with that same +sweet, honest friendship, that don't need words! I've got my +life-love, but I've lost my life-friend--an' my heart's sore--sore +with pain!" + +The rider lifted his face and it was glorified in the first rays of +the sun that was rising over the eastern mountains. His gayly studded +belt and riding cuffs, his spurs and the vanity of silver on his wide +hat caught the glow and sparkled brightly. Joy became paramount over +sadness. + +"Don't you fret, Tharon," he said, still in that soft voice, "I'm +always at your shoulder in spirit--in body, too, if you ever want me +or need me. So long." + +And he kissed both the hands he held, dropped them, turned and mounted +Golden, waved a hand to all the Holding, and putting the horse to a +run, went down the sounding-board as if he dared not look back. + +Until horse and rider were a tiny speck on the living green--until +they passed the Silver Hollow and the mouth of Black Coulee, Tharon +Last stood in the western door and watched them with dim blue eyes. + +Ail the wide expanse of Lost Valley was still and sweet with dawn, +smiling as if with a new and wondrous peace, the Vestal's Veil +shimmered on the Rockface, the distant peaks above the Canon Country +cut the skies. + +She scanned the little world about and felt this peace press down upon +her soul--as if the questions all were answered, the duty done. + +Never in all her life before had Last's Holding seemed to her so +secure and settled, so sweet and to be desired.... + +Within it lay her destiny--the man in the cool south room. + +Without in the great Valley lay a future. + +Love was with her--friendship would be with her always in memory, one +glowing with its vital presence, the other softened and doubly sweet +with the sorrow of absence. + +She raised her hand and made the sign of the Cross between herself and +that disappearing speck, then she turned and followed old Anita +carrying gruels to that dim south room. + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Tharon of Lost Valley, by Vingie E. 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