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 cañon 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 cañon 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, José 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 ch
ange 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!”
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