Tharon of Lost Valley

by Vingie E. Roe

  CHAPTER V

  THE WORKING OF THE LAW

  It was a clear, bright morning in early summer. All up and down LostValley the little winds wimpled the grass where the cattle grazed, andbrought the scent of flowers. In the thin, clear atmosphere points andlandmarks stood out with wonderful boldness.

  The homesteads set in the endless green like tiny gems, the stupendousface of the Wall, stretching from north to south and sheer as a plumbline for a thousand feet, was fretted with a myriad of tiny seams andcrevasses not ordinarily visible.

  Far up at the Valley's head against the huge uplift of the jumbled andbarren rocklands the scattered squat buildings of the Strongholdbrooded like a monster.

  Spread out on the velvet slopes below lay the herds that belonged toit, sleek fat cattle, guarded carelessly by a few lazy and desultoryriders. Courtrey was too secure in his insolent might to take thoserigid and untiring precautions which were the only price of safety tothe lesser men of the community. Toward the south where the Valleynarrowed to the Bottle Neck and the Broken Bend went out, thereshimmered 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 andincessant wail of winds in time-worn canyons.

  Along the floor of the Cup Rim range, sunken and hidden from the upperlevels, there rode a compact group of horsemen. They went abreast, incolumn of fours, and they were armed to the teeth, a bristlingpresentation. All in all there were forty-two of them and at theirhead rode Tharon on El Rey, a slim and gallant young figure.

  Her bright hair, tied with a scarlet ribbon, shone under her wide hatlike an aureole. She talked with Conford who rode beside her, and nowand then she smiled, for all the world as if she went to some youngfolks' gathering, instead of to the first uncertain issue of blind moblaw against outlaws.

  But if she felt a lightness of excitement in her heart it was morethan actuated by the grim and quiet band that followed.

  They knew--and she knew, also--that what they did this day, in theopen sunlight, meant savage strife and bloodshed for some as sure asdeath.

  For two hours they rode across the sunken range where the cottonwoodsand aspens made a lovely and mottled shade, to reach at last the sharpascent to the uplands above. When they topped the rim and startedforward, the huge herds of Courtrey lay spread before them, bright aspaint on the living green. Two thousand cattle grazed there in peaceand plenty. Here and there a rider sat his horse in idleness. At thefirst sight of the solidly formed mass coming out of the Cup Rim on tothe levels, these riders straightened in their saddles and rode incloser to their charges.

  The eyes of the newcomers went over the bright pattern of the grazingcattle. A motley bunch they were, red, black and white, with here andthere descendants of the yellows which none but John Dement had everowned in Lost Valley. Dement, riding near the head of the line sawthis and muttered in his beard.

  "Thar's some o' mine," he said pointing, "th' very ones that wasstampeded. I'd know 'em in hell."

  SHE TALKED WITH CONFORD WHO RODE BESIDE HER AND NOW ANDTHEN SHE SMILED]

  With the nearing of the line of horsemen a rider detached himself fromthe right of the herd and went sailing away across the levels towardthe distant Stronghold.

  Quick as a flash Tharon Last lifted the rifle that lay ready on herpommel 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 slideten feet on its haunches.

  He had meant to warn his boss, but a chance was one thing, certaintyanother.

  "Dixon--Dement," called Tharon rising in her stirrups, "when we get towork 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 flankof the herd. Here a rider raised his arm and fired point blank at theleaders. 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 hisdefence 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 towardhim. Then Buford, riding midway of the sweeping line, fired and theboy dropped his gun, swayed and clung to his saddle horn as his horsebolted 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 youkill him?"

  "No," called Buford sharply, "broke his arm."

  Tharon, to whom the high blue vault had seemed suddenly to swing instrange circles, shut her teeth with a click.

  Abreast of the cattle she swerved El Rey aside, drew her guns andwaited.

  In among the grazing cattle, many of which had raised startled headsto eye the intruders, went the men. They worked swiftly and deftly.They knew that they were in plain sight of the Stronghold and expectedevery 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 tenhead of steers, as nearly as possible all white, to take the place ofDixon's band. Thomas and Black stood guard over them. Then they wentback and took out yellows and yellow-spotted to the number of onehundred. It was fast work, the fastest ever done on the Lost Valleyranges, and every nerve was strained like a singing wire.

  Under the dust cloud raised by the plunging hoofs, the whirlinghorses, the workers kept as close together as possible.

  They rounded up the cut-outs, bunched them together compactly andswinging into a half circle, drove them rapidly back toward theoak-fringed edge of the Cup Rim. They passed close to where the slimboy stood by his horse, trying to wind the big red kerchief from hisneck 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 herface. "You've made me false t' Courtrey. I'd die first."

  "Die, then!" she flung back, "an' tell your master that th' law isworkin' in this Valley at last!"

  As the last rider of the cavalcade went down over the slanting edge ofthe Cup Rim there came the sound of quick shots snapping in thedistance and the belated sight of riders streaming down from theStronghold hurried the descent.

  They had reached the level floor of the sunken range and spread outupon it for better travelling before Courtrey and his men, some ten orfifteen riders, appeared on the upper crest.

  The settlers stopped instantly at a call from Conford, drew togetherbehind the cattle, turned and faced them. They were too far away forspeech, out of rifle range, but the still, grim defiance of thatcompact front halted the outlaw cattle king and his followers.

  For the first time in all his years of rising power in Lost ValleyCourtrey felt a challenge. For the first time he knew that a tide wasbanking in full force against him. A red rage flushed up under hisdark skin, and he raised a silent fist and shook it at the blueheavens.

  The grim watchers below knew that gesture, significant, majestic,boded ill to them.

  But Tharon Last, muttering to herself in the hatred that possessed herof late at sight of Courtrey, raised her own doubled fist and shook ithigh toward him, an answer, an acceptance of that challenge.

  Then they calmly turned and drove the recovered cattle down along thesloping levels at a fast trot.

  The die was struck. Lost Valley was no longer a stamping-ground forwrong 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. Thesettlers walked about, smoking, or sat silently in the darkenedliving room. At midnight Tharon and young Paula made huge pots ofcoffee which they dispensed along with crullers.

  By daw
n the cattle were well on their way, still safeguarded by theband of men, down toward the homesteads where they belonged.

  During that night of unlighted silence plans had been perfected in lowvoices, a name chosen for the band itself. They would call themselvesthe Vigilantes, as many another organization had called itself in thedesperate straits that made its existence imperative.

  By sundown the hundred head had been driven, hot and tired, into JohnDement's corrals, the ten white steers were bedded by Black's Springover toward the Wall. They had farther to go and would not reachDixon'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. Toeach faction it had a deep significance.

  But speech concerning it was sparse as it had ever been anent thedoings of Courtrey. A man's tongue was a prisoner to his common sensethose days.

  To Tharon Last, busy at her tasks about the Holding, it was a vitalmatter. She felt a strong surge, an uplift within her. She had begunthe 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 whatit did to Courtrey himself. In him it set loose something which burnedin him like a consuming fire. Where he had thought of Tharon Lastbefore with a certain intent, now he thought of her in a sort ofmadness. He was a king himself, in a manner, an eagle, a prowler ofgreat spaces, a rule-or-ruin force. Down there on the sloping floor ofthe Cup Rim had been a fit mate for him in the slim girl who hadshaken her fist back at him in strong defiance.

  He felt his blood leap hot at the thought of her. She was built offighting stuff. No pale willy-nilly, like some he knew who wept wholefountains 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'sstraight 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 theblue veins showed. Her pale blue eyes, like the painted eyes of achina doll, were red with constant tears under their corn-silk lashes.The pale gold hair on her temples was often damp with the sweat thatcomes with agony of soul.

  "It jes' seems I can't live another minute, Cleve," she would tell herbrother 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 aresingin' eternal down in th' runnel."

  This brother, her only relative, would stir uneasily at such times andthe fire that shot from his eyes, light, too, under the same corn-silklashes, was a rare thing. Nothing but this had ever set it burning. Hewas a slight man, narrow-chested and thin. They had been from run-downstock, these two, a strain that seemed indigenous to the Valley,without other memories. Their name was Whitmore, and they had livedall their lives in a poor cove up beyond the Valley's head where thebarren rocklands came down out of the skies. There had been, besidesthemselves, only the father and mother, worn-out workers, who haddied at last, leaving the brother and sister to live as best theymight in the solitudes.

  Here Courtrey had found them, both in their teens, and he had promptlytaken them both along with their scant affairs. It was about the onlything to his credit that he had married Ellen, hard and fast enough,with the offices of a bona fide justice, a matter which he hadregretted 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 kingstep lively for over a year. He saw the daily growing impatience withwhich Courtrey regarded his marriage.

  He resented with every ounce of the repressed spirit there was in himthe girl's poor standing at the Stronghold.

  Black Bart and Wylackie Bob treated her with no more considerationthan any of the Indian serving women. They swore and drank before herwith an abandon that made the young man's nails cut deep in his palmsat times, the blood mount high in his white cheeks.

  And Ellen drooped like a lily on a broken stem, brooded over herhusband's absences, and hated the name of Lola, used openly to her asa cruel joke.

  The Stronghold was a huge place. The house was like the majority ofthe habitations of the region, built of adobe and able to stand siegeagainst a regiment. It was shaded by cottonwoods and spruces, flankedby corrals and barns and sheds until the place resembled a smalltown.

  Cleve Whitmore rode for Courtrey but his heart was not in Courtrey'sgame. 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 itwas, that when the newly organized Vigilantes under Tharon Last cameout in broad day and took back their own from Courtrey's herds, therewas one at the Stronghold who laughed quietly to himself in sympathywith the defy.

  "Good enough," he told the wide sky and the silence as he rode herdunder the beetling rocklands, "hope t' God some one gits him good an'plenty."

  But Courtrey was hard to get. His aides and lieutenants were pickedmen. He was like a king in his domain.

  But if strife and ferment seethed under the calm surface in LostValley, its surges died before they reached the rolling slopes wherethe forests came down to the eastern plains. Up among the pines andoaks, the ridges and the age-worn, tumbled rocks David Kenset hadfound his ideal spot, his glade where the pines stood guard and atalking stream ran down. High on the wooded slopes he had set hismark, begun that home of which he had told Tharon. From Corvan he hadhired three men, a teamster by the name of Drake and his two sons, andtogether they had felled and dressed trees enough for a cabin, laidthem up with clay brought five miles on mule-back, roofed thestructure with shakes made on the spot with a froe, and the result waspleasing, indeed, to this man straight from the far eastern cities.

  The cabin faced southwest, set at an angle to command the circledglade, the dropping slopes, the distant range lands, the wooded lineof the Broken Bend, and farther off the levels and slants of thegently undulating Valley, with the mighty Rockface of the Wall risinglike a mystery beyond. Kenset cut all trees at the west and south ofthe glade, thus forming a splendid doorway into his retreat, throughwhich all this shone in, like those wonderful etched landscapes onesometimes sees in tiny toys that fit the narrowed eye.

  Before the cabin was finished, Starret, who ran the regularpack-train, brought in a string of trunks and boxes which caused muchcurious comment in Corvan. These came up, after much delay, to bedumped in the door yard of the house in the glade, and Kenset felt asif the gateway to the outside world might close and he care verylittle.

  Here was the wilderness, in all verity, here was work, that greatestof boons, here were health and plenty and the hazard of outlawry, thathe was beginning to dimly sense under the calmly flowing currents ofLost Valley.

  And here was Romance, as witness the slim girl who had backed out froma group of men that first day of his coming--backed out with her gunsupon them, himself included, and mounted a silver stallion, whose likehe had not known existed. In fact, Kenset had thought he knew horses,but he stood in open-mouthed wonder before the horses of LostValley--the magnificent Ironwood bays of Courtrey's, with theirwonderful long manes and tails that shone like a lady's hair, theFinger 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 ofhome, of individuality. A big dark rug, woven of strong cord in greenand brown, came out and went down on the rough floor, leather runnerswere flung on the two tables, a student lamp of nickel, a pair of oldcandlesticks in hammered brass, a
dded their touch of gleam and shineto table and shelf-above-the-hearth, college pennants, in all thecolours of the rainbow, were hung about the walls between four fineprints in sepia, gay cushions, much the worse for wear, landed in thehandsome chairs, and lastly, but far from being least, three longshelves beneath the northern windows were filled to the last inch withbooks.

  When all these things had been put in place Kenset stood back andsurveyed 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 betweenthe southwest window and the fireplace he stacked neatly a mass ofliterature, all marked with the same peculiar shield of the pine treesand the big U. S. that shone always on his breast.

  To the Drakes these things were of quick interest, but they asked noquestions.

  When the last thing had been done to the cabin they set to work andbuilt a smaller cabin for the good brown horse which Kenset had boughtfar down to the south and west in the Coast Country, for Sam Draketold 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 forgood, Kenset stretched himself, physically and mentally, and began hislife in the last frontier.

  He began to be out from dawn to dark riding the ridges, exploring thewooded slopes, the boldly upsweeping breasts of the namelessmountains, making friends with the rugged land. It was a beautifulcountry, hushed and silent, save for the soft song of the pines, thelaughter of streams that ran to the Valley, cold as snow and clear aswind. 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 himintently. These invariably rode rapidly away on being discovered, nottroubling to return his salute of a hand waved high above him.

  "Funny tribe," he told himself, half puzzled, half irritated, "theirmanners seem to be peculiarly their own. As witness the offered mealso calmly 'taken back' by the young highway-woman of Last'sHolding."

  That had rankled. Sane as Kenset was, as cool and self-contained, hecould not repress a cold prickle of resentment at that memory.

  He had gone to the Holding in such good faith, actuated by a livelydesire to see Tharon again after that one amazing meeting at Baston'ssteps, and he had been so readily received at first, so coolly turnedout at last. But he had not forgotten the look in the girl's blueeyes, nor the disarming smile which had seemed to make it reasonable.

  She merely did not hold with law, and wanted him to have no falseimpressions. This incident furnished him with more food for thoughtthan he was aware of in those first long days when he rode the silentforest.

  What was Tharon Last, anyway? What did she mean by those words of hersabout his law and hers? That they were not the same sort of law--thathe 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 thisgirl of the guns that sent a thrill tingling in his blood already,made him recall each expression of her speaking face, each line of herlean young figure.

  He did not go near Last's again, though his business took him far andby in the Valley, for the big maps, hung on a rack beyond hisfireplace, covered full half the ranges thereof and stretched awayinto the mysterious and illimitable forests that went up and away intothe eastern mountains.

  It was as if some fateful Power at Washington had set down a carelessfinger on a map of the U.S.A., and said to Kenset, "Here is yourcountry," without knowledge or interest. Sometimes he wondered ifthere was another forest in the land as utterly lost as this, aslittle known.

  But with this wonder came a thrill. He had read romances of the greatWest in his youth and felt a vague regret that he had not lived in therollicking days of '49. Now as he rode his new domain he smiled tohimself and thought that out of a modern college he had been set backhalf 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 felthimself lucky.

  So he took up his life and his duties with a vim. He rode early andlate, took notes and gathered data for his first reports, and set upfor himself in Lost Valley a spreading antagonism.

  If he rode herd on the range lands, the timber sections, there werethose who rode herd on him. Not a movement of his that was notreported faithfully to Courtrey, not a coming or going that was notwatched from start to finish.

  And the cattle king narrowed his eyes and listened to his lieutenantswith 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'tsee no signs of tillin'. He ain't fencin', nor goin' to fence, as nearas 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'sdark cheeks.

  "Don't think so. Seems like he's after somethin', but what it is Ican't make out."

  But it was not long before the Stronghold solved the mystery, forKenset rode boldly in one day and introduced himself.

  It was mid-afternoon, for the cabin in the glade lay a long way fromthe Valley's head, and the whole big place lay silent as death in thesummer sun.

  The Indian serving women were off in the depths somewhere, the few_vaqueros_ left at home were out about the spreading corrals, and allthe men that counted at the ranch had ridden into Corvan early in theday.

  Only Ellen, pale as a flower, her sweet mouth drooping, sat listlesslyon the hard beaten earth at the eastern side of the squat house wherethe spruce trees grew, her hands folded in her lap, a sunbonnetcovering the golden mass of her hair.

  At the sound of his horse's hoofs on the stone-flagged yard Kenset sawher 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 heavycurrent of her dull life.

  He came in close, drew up, and, with his hat in his hand, sat smilingdown 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 atonce, even under the disfiguring headgear, that here was a breakingheart laid open for all eyes. The very droop and tremble of the lipswere 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, whoseblue-veined hands were almost transparent.

  "Yes," she said, and waited.

  That little waiting, calm, unruffled, made him think sharply ofTharon Last who had waited also for his accounting for himself.

  "I am Kenset," he said, "of over in the foothills. Is your husband athome?"

  "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 Iparticularly 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, whilethe animal drew a long whistling breath and in turn rubbed the stickybrow band on its forehead on Kenset's arm.

  "Looks like he's thirsty," said Ellen presently. "There's a troughround yonder at th' back," and she waved a long hand.

  Kenset led Captain around back where a living spring sang and gurgledinto a section of tree, deeply hollowed and covered with moss.

  When he came back to the shade the woman had brought from some nearplace a second chair, and he dropped gratefully into it, weary fromhis long ride.

  He laid his hat on the earth beside him an
d smoothed the sleek, darkhair 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, atthe trim leather leggings that encased his lower limbs, at his smoothhands, 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 ofpity for her.

  "Not as you mean, Mrs. Courtrey," he hastened. "I am in the UnitedStates 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 thiscountry," he explained gently, but he saw that he was not making itclear.

  "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, Kensettalked quietly for an hour and told her more than he had vouchsafedany other in Lost Valley about his work.

  Gradually, however, he fell to talking to amuse her, for he saw theemptiness behind the big blue eyes, the aching void which there wasnothing to fill, neither love nor hope.

  As the sun sank lower toward the west Ellen took off the atrocity ofcalico and starch, and he saw with wonder the amazing beauty of herropes of hair.

  When he ceased talking the silence became profound, for she hadnothing to say and speech did not come easy to her anyway. He did notknow that at the windows and behind the door-jambs of the deep oldhouse were clustered almost a dozen dusky women and children, drawnfrom 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 lefthis face. He told Ellen of boat races on the Hudson, of theatres onBroadway, of college pranks and frolics, ranged over half thecontinent in little story and snatch of description.

  Neither one noticed how the shadows were lengthening, nor that thesun had dropped in majesty behind the mighty Wall.

  It took the sound of running horses, many of them coming up along theslopes, to bring Kenset back to the present with a snap, to make thewoman reach swiftly for the bonnet and clap it on her head.

  "Mrs. Courtrey," said Kenset hurriedly, "this has been the first realtalk I have had with any of my neighbours, and I want to thank you forit."

  "Oh," quavered the woman, "I don't know as I'd ought to a-let youstayed! Mebby I'd oughtn't. But--but seems like you bein' sodifferent, an' I not seein' no one, come day in day out, w'y I--I--"

  "Sure," he returned quickly, understanding. "You did just right. Iwanted to stay."

  Then he rose to his feet and there came the thunder of the horses, thenoise of men stopping from a run, dismounting.

  Ellen rose and he followed her around the corner of the house to thedoor yard.

  As they waited, Courtrey, clad in dark leather chaps, his gunsswinging, came toward them. At sight of Kenset he stopped short and anoath rolled from his lips. The kerchief at his neck was turnedknot-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 upperlip.

  "What's this?" he said, and there was a light suspicion of thicknessin his voice, "my wife got com-ny?"

  Kenset heard the woman catch her breath, and the feeling of pity thathad taken him at first for her intensified.

  "No, Mr. Courtrey," he said advancing, "but you have," and he held outhis hand. "I'm Kenset, from the foothills."

  Courtrey, not four feet from him, did not look at the hand. Insteadthe glittering eyes under the hat-brim looked steadily into his withan expression that only one man in a hundred could have interpreted.

  That one man, however, stood by the watering trough, his hand on theneck of a drinking horse--Cleve Whitmore who watched Courtrey withoutblinking.

  For a moment Kenset stood so, his hand extended, waiting. Then thecolour 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 LostValley to _stay_. I had hoped to be friends with all my neighbours. Itwould 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 brownhorse, flung up the rein, mounted and rode out of the Stronghold inutter silence.

  His face was flaming, the blood of outraged dignity and deep angerbeat in his temples like a drum. As he rode farther away he heard theembarrassing silence broken by the hoarse shouts of laughter of halfdrunken 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, 'Ifyou help the Service to tame Lost Valley you've got your work cutout.' It's a man-size job. I mustn't doubt my ability."